"Under that law, the threshold for evidence required to press rape charges is so high that only one in 10 rapes is reported, the Justice Ministry said. Of those cases that do proceed to court, 8 percent lead to a conviction. Germany, which did not criminalize marital rape until 1997, has one of the worst records in Europe for protecting its women from sexual violence, said Brendan Wynne, a spokesman for Equality Now, an international rights organization that lobbies for better protection for women and girls."