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Jealous husbands face jail
27/02/2007 16:12 - (SA)
Mexico City - Mexican men who display
extreme jealousy or avoid sex with their wives could be tried
in court and punished under a new law, the special prosecutor
for crimes against women told a local newspaper on Friday.
Men who phone their wives every half hour to check up on
them, constantly suspect them of infidelity or try to control
the way they dress are committing the crime of jealousy,
special prosecutor Alicia Elena Perez Duarte told Excelsior
newspaper.
Those who stop talking to their wives, avoid sex or try to
convince suspicious spouses they are "crazy" even if they are
caught red-handed having an affair, are guilty of indifference,
she said.
Men found guilty of jealousy or indifference could face up
to five years in prison, the newspaper said. Mexico's
individual states will determine the punishments, it said.
The progressive new law was passed this month to protect
women from domestic violence.
In Mexico, about 75% of all murdered women are
killed by their husbands, Perez Duarte said.
"If we do not stop this from the beginning, it turns into
beatings, and the beatings turn into more beatings and rape,
until it gets out of hand, and whoops, she died," she told the
paper.
Crimes against women
Perez Duarte said the law would be a weapon that women
could employ to level the playing field with abusive men.
"Men ought not to feel discriminated against," she told
Excelsior.
Perez Duarte said indifference, jealousy or lack of love
were crimes against women just as much as physical violence.
"Jealousy produces a particular type of stress in the
person that comes up against it," she said. "It is exactly the
same. They are wounds, psychological scars identical to
physical scars."
- Reuters
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South Africa
