The Parliament in Jordan voted Tuesday to revoke a law allowing rapists to evade criminal prosecution if they marry their victims, becoming the latest country in the Middle East to move to scrap such laws.

A handful of countries, including several in the Arab world as well as in the Philippines, a majority Catholic country, have maintained legal provisions for men accused or convicted of rape to avoid punishment. Women’s groups have agitated for years for the laws to be repealed, saying they further victimize rape survivors. And one by one, the laws are falling.

A government committee in Jordan had recommended that the law, known as Article 308 of the country’s penal code, be revoked and the lower house of the Jordanian Parliament voted to do so on Tuesday. The repeal is expected to be endorsed by the appointed Senate and approved by King Abdullah II.

Cheers went up from the spectators gallery in Parliament when the measure passed, according to an Associated Press report from Amman, the Jordanian capital.