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‘But he is my husband! How can that be rape?’: Exploring silences around date and marital rape in Lesotho

abstract In Lesotho, where there are very high HIV infection rates among teenagers and young adults, most of whom are girls and women, it is surprising to find that women teachers are unwilling to talk about rape within the context of sexual relationships and its links to HIV infections. This briefing seeks to explain the reluctance of Basotho women to talk about experiences of date and marital rape by examining the power dynamics within sexual relationships and the interplay between economic dependence and silence. In this briefing, I draw on data from an ongoing study which seeks to understand the phenomenon of female sexuality in Lesotho, through memory accounts of four female Basotho science teachers who experienced date and marital rape. The findings suggest that silence is a feature of gender relations that prevents the negotiation of safe sex, the exploration of the self and the expression of vulnerability. Interventions that consciously attempt to break the silence around date and marital rape can make a major contribution to reducing the likelihood of new HIV infections among women and girls and to promoting gender equality among Basotho.