In India, marital rape is not a crime. To fight the law, RIT Foundation needed to raise awareness with a though-provoking stunt video. So we got an activist to turn himself into the police, pretending he raped his wife. Within minutes, he was freed. We captured the whole process — from him interviewing lawyers & victims, to him going into the police station with hidden cameras and the authorities saying that raping your wife is not a crime. The film was launched online to fierce reactions from both camps, with influencers uploading our videos on their channels to support

Some say religion and tradition play a part and India is one of the most patriarchal societies in the world. While most countries have been progressing towards gender equality, India still lags behind. Despite movements like #metoo and celebrities speaking up for the cause in the country, there are still various laws and social rules that place women below men in terms of rights and hierarchy. RIT Foundation is an Indian NGO fighting for women’s rights. One of their biggest challenges is marital rape. India is one of the few countries in the world where it is legal for a man to rape his wife. Despite stats saying 2 in 3 Indian wives are raped by their spouses, lawmakers don’t see the need to prioritise it. We need to create a campaign that sparks conversation within society to pressure authorities to review rape laws.

In India, 2 in 3 women are raped by their husbands and it is totally legal. The law has an exception where rape inside a marriage is not a crime. To fight the law, RIT Foundation needed to raise awareness. So we sent an activist to turn himself into the police, pretending he raped his wife. Within minutes, he was freed. We filmed the entire process — from interviews with lawyers & victims, to him going into the police station with hidden cameras and authorities saying that raping your wife is not a crime — exposing how India treats marital rape cases. We broke the story as a documentary online, sparking fierce debate on both sides.

In the short-term, we wanted to raise awareness by creating debate surrounding marital rape. Supporters and naysayers both had fierce reactions to the campaign and soon, survivors of marital rape in India started coming forward and sharing their stories privately with us. To aid them in recovery, we connected them with counsellors in their state. Our long-term goal was to generate enough conversation to pave the way for the Delhi High Court to criminalise marital rape in India, something we achieved when we secured a petition hearing date scheduled 27 March 2020. We targeted liberal Indian women living in Mumbai and Delhi as they would resonate with our cause most. We also looked at South Asian feminist groups, global equal rights advocates as well as high-profile Indian feminist influencers who our target audience followed.

In a country of 1.3 billion facing many issues every day, your message needs to really stand out. So we raised awareness by getting an activist to turn himself in to the police, pretending he raped his wife. He was let go as innocent, proving the absurdity of the law. We filmed the entire process — from interviews with lawyers & victims to prepare for the big day, to him going into the police station with hidden cameras and the authorities saying that raping your wife is not a crime — exposing how India treats marital rape cases. We launched our campaign on International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. To maintain buzz, we latched on hashtags of news such as the 2019 Hyderabad gang rape and articles of marital rape acquittals in India.

Please Arrest Me made the headline in India attracting many supporters, but also haters to our campaign for change. Soon, conservatives started flooding our social pages with hate messages, with thousands reporting and successfully taking down our content 4 times. Censorship didn’t shut the debate. Thankfully, the attention helped us gather supporters with bigger influence. To pressure the Delhi High Court, Indian feminist influencers & advocate groups pushed back by sharing our content & encouraging their followers to do the same. Through this, we received countless messages offering to help us out in any way they could, with some even uploading our video on their own social channels. The conversation progressed and the patriarchal society of India was forced to deal with the issue. The case to change marital rape laws will be heard this year at the Delhi High Court, paving the way to criminalising marital rape nationwide.