Events
& Issues
New Delhi, 15 October
2020
Crime
Against Women
SHOCKING CASE OF NEGLIGENCE
By Dhurjati Mukherjee
In India, as per
report of National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) 2019 every 16 minutes, a woman is
raped somewhere in some State and daily an average of 88 women are raped. And
at least one minor is arrested for raping a woman or a girl every 8 hours in
2019, while over three on an average were held for assaulting a woman daily.
The data further revealed 2750 juveniles were arrested in 2019 on charges of
rape, assault on women and attempted rape cumulatively. Of these, 1383 and 1327
were arrested for rape and assault respectively.
The statistics are
tip of the iceberg as survivors and families of victims are reluctant to record
their complaint through an FIR, as they would be aware rather wary of the
various roadblocks in their hunt for justice. As has been generally found and
agreed is that when someone tries to file an FIR, against culprits belonging to
the Upper caste, there is delay in filing it, the victim’s testimony is often
changed while being written down and there is grave pressure to compromise. As
such, convictions for rape stand at a miserable 28 per cent.
Experts have
confirmed the immense difficulty in registering an FIR and this is evident not
just in rural areas but in big cities too. Apart from this, the police
machinery fails to take up cases in right earnest, obviously under pressure
from political bosses till there is pressure from civil rights bodies or even
the media following coverage of some cases. Further, it is stated that the
pendency rate of cases under the SC/ST Act is at 94 per cent and sometimes the
inordinate delay may dilute a particular case.
Sadly, while on the
one hand atrocities have risen, the number of special fast courts has been reduced.
In 2016, there were 195 such cases but it came down to 157 in 2018. Apart from those
belonging to lower castes, specially Dalit and adivasis, (of the total 32,033
reported rape cases in the year, 11% were from the Dalit community, women who
are mostly poor face sexual violence in different forms and do find it tough to
fight the patriarchal system, prevalent across majority of States.
Additionally, WHO statistics
state that one-third of Indian women face domestic violence but less than one
per cent report it. Indian women are 17 times more likely to face sexual
violence from a husband than others. And recent statistic has shown that during
the first four phases of the lockdown, Indian women filed more domestic
violence complaints than recorded in a similar period in the past 10 years.
Moreover, it has been found that 86 per cent women who experienced domestic violence
never sought help and that 77 per cent didn’t even mention the incident to
anyone.
In August this year,
a 13-year old Dalit girl was raped and brutally murdered for defecating in a
farmland in a UP village in Lakhimpur Kheri district. The Hathras victim was
also a Dalit. Similarly, there are umpteen such cases, not to speak of the
Nirbhaya gang rape. A systemic and structured sexual violence is something that
in our country cuts across social worlds and is not confined to such polarized
spaces where physical violence against women is but a routine form of dealing
with matters at hand, whether property or other disputes. And it has assumed a
more pervasive and amorphous character in a heartless world.
With Hathras incident
hitting headlines, though Opposition parties condemned it on expected lines,
interestingly 100-odd retired bureaucrats recently wrote an open letter to the
UP Chief Minister expressing pain at the “constant plumbing the depths of
gravity and callousness in governance” and demanding punishment for the officials
who had failed the alleged rape victim. The letter details the threat of
policemen and the district magistrate to the bereaved family to “be careful
about their statements to the media”.
Another data of NCRB
showed that at least one minor was arrested for raping woman or girl every 8
hours in 2019 while more than three on average were held for assaulting a woman
daily. The data further revealed 2750 juveniles were arrested in 2019 on
charges of rape, assault on women and attempted rape cumulatively. Of these,
1383 and 1327 were arrested for rape and assault respectively.
All these figures are
just the tip of the iceberg as survivors and families of victims are reluctant
to record their complaint through an FIR while these people face huge roadblocks
in every step of the process to get justice. As has been found, when someone
tries to file an FIR, upper caste people reach the police station at the same
time. Moreover, the victim’s testimony is often changed while being written
down and there is pressure to compromise. As such, convictions for rape stand
at a miserable 28 per cent.
Experts have
confirmed the immense difficulty in registering an FIR and this is evident not
just in rural areas but also in big cities. Apart from this, the corrupt police
machinery doesn’t take up cases in right earnest unless there is pressure from
civil rights bodies and the media. In this connection, it may be mentioned that
the pendency rate of cases under the SC/ST Act at 94 per cent and sometimes the
inordinate delay may dilute a particular case.
Even though
atrocities have gone up from 2018 to 2019, the number of exclusive special
courts has reduced. In 2016, there were 195 but this came down to 157 in 2018.
Apart from people of lower castes, specially Dalit and adivasi women, who are
mostly poor face sexual violence in different forms and have great difficulty
in fighting against a patriarchal system.
The political class
presently shows little concern for the lower castes and the impoverished
sections, who live in abject poverty and squalor and have to struggle every day
for a dignified existence. The lack of education, and more importantly,
awareness about rights of the opposite sex enable sexual assaults and rapes to
become the order of the day.
Talking to
psychologists and psychiatrists, it becomes evident that the basic cause behind
the increase in rapes may be attributed to increasing aggression in human
behavior. Another trend that is manifest is the well-off upper castes youth,
who have abandoned education and move about with financial support from their
parents, are prone to show their power and fall for the opposite sex as they
are sure that their family is above law. High levels of indiscipline are
manifest in their behaviour as they have not been taught the need to be
disciplined and follow the rule of law.
Though we talk of
societal change and transformation, one needs to question the state of human
behaviour, specially of a large section of the population, and whether there
has been any perceptible change. There is an imperative need to spread
awareness in society about basic tenets which one should follow to live in a
cultured society. Merely talking of culture and tradition will not take us
forward; there is need for dedicated action and awareness among generations
about ourselves, our society and our responsibility –but most of all –morality.
One cannot deny that
though there has been a perceptible increase in education, rape or even sexual
assault on women and girls is a deep-rooted problem. Though women activists
have played a significant role in highlighting the problem and bringing it to
the forefront, a corrupt law enforcement machinery as also a patriarchal system
have been major hindrances. It is expected that in the coming years things
would change for the better and women would get their due role in society.---INFA
(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)
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