‘This case is significant because now women know that marital rape is a crime and that they have the right to say “no”,’ says Fitilagi Fa’anunu, Director of the Family Protection Legal Aid Centre. In May 2020, Lord Chief Justice M.H. Whitten QC sentenced a man to five years in jail for raping and beating his wife. The ruling made for this landmark case sent a clear message that unwanted sexual violence cannot be justified or tolerated. As the Lord Chief Justice Whitten put it, ‘rape is rape!’. For more than 20 years rape within marriage has been a criminal offence in Tonga, as detailed in the Criminal Offences Act.1 However, it still remains a ‘common but under-reported crime’.
