Society Rape
Victims: Out of Court, Out of Mind
by Neeta Lal
Since the
beginning of 2008, numerous incidents of rape and murder of women in the
country - across the class and economic spectrum - have surfaced.
Tourists, locals, young, old... no woman has been spared, it seems.
Be it the recent heinous rape and murder of British
teenager Scarlett Keeling in Goa or the shameful
public assault on two women outside a suburban Mumbai
hotel by a mob of around 70 on the night of December
31, or the report of a guesthouse owner in Udaipur,
Rajasthan, raping a British journalist; a shocked
Canadian family hastily quitting Kumarakom, Kerala, on
account of the molestation of their two minor girls by
a hotel watchman or the arrest of a 58- year-old
principal in Delhi for the rape of a minor girl on his
school premises, the list of crimes and innocent
victims is endless.
Statistics for 2006, released in January this year by
the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), reveal that
every hour 18 Indian women become victims of sexual
crimes with rape being the fastest growing crime in
the country. In a quarter of the rape cases, the
victims were minors.
Disquieting as it is, while crimes like murder,
robbery, kidnapping and rioting - classified as
'violent' under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) - have
recorded a drop in numbers, rape cases have ballooned
by a shameful 678 per cent since 1971. According to
the NCRB, between 1971 and 2006, while murder cases
about doubled, kidnapping/abduction cases registered
an increase of 149 per cent, dacoity/rioting cases
showed a remarkable decline. Overall, the occurrence
of violent crimes has been whittled down by about 16
per cent.
Given this backdrop - and the fact that India is on a
remarkable upward economic growth trajectory - the
ratcheting up of sexual crimes against women is
disconcerting. To make matters worse, among the 35
cities with a population of more than a million, Delhi
tops the list of sexual crimes against women with
4,134 cases (nearly a fifth of the total of such
attacks). In other words, a third of the rapes and a
fifth of molestations were recorded in Delhi.
Hyderabad came in a notch lower with 1,755 cases.
Overall, Andhra Pradesh recorded the most number of
crimes against women - 21,484 cases or 13 per cent of
the total cases in 2006. Uttar Pradesh registered 9.9
per cent, while Madhya Pradesh reported the highest
number of rape cases at 2,900.
The Section 375 of the IPC defines rape as "an
intentional, unlawful sexual intercourse with a woman
without her consent". But, as activists and lawyers
have been arguing for years, this somewhat narrow
definition of rape does not include acts of forced
oral sex, or sodomy, actions which are criminalized
under Section 354 (which deals with 'criminal assault
on a woman with intent to outrage her modesty') and
Section 377 that concerns 'carnal intercourse against
the order of nature'.
Ergo, this limited classification of 'rape' - and the
resultant legal ambiguity - has weakened the ability
of the law enforcement regime in India to crack down
on it. Moreover, even the government has admitted to
the inadequacies of the present laws.
What is also irksome in the Indian context is that in
rape cases, the onus is always on the woman to prove
that she was the victim, which puts her on the
defensive, indirectly strengthening her perpetrator's
case.
Meenakshi Pahwal, a Delhi lawyer, says, "In any
case, a traumatized rape victim finds it tough to
stand up to the court's scrutiny. When such a
vulnerable person is further exposed to a battery of
embarrassing personal questions, she would naturally
feel psychologically disadvantaged. That's the reason
why we have such few convictions in rape cases in
India. Most victims either end up withdrawing their
cases or reaching an out-of-court settlement." Another
ludicrous way out, though occasionally embraced by
rape victims in desperation, points out Pahwal, is to
'marry' the rapist.
Expressing alarm over the increasing rape and
molestation cases across the country, the National
Commission for Women recently requested the Union
Women and Child Development Ministry to enforce
stricter punishment in such cases. The body has
suggested an amendment to the laws on sexual assault
and the draft of a Sexual Assault Bill to make such
punishments more stringent. The Commission recommends
that any sexual act - transpiring against the woman's
(complainant's) will - should be made punishable with
an imprisonment of not less than seven years,
extendable up to 10 years and a fine.
Delhi-based psychologist Sunidhi Sarma feels that
culture aspects too have a role to play in the rising
crime graph against women. Indian women, she feels,
have always been objectified as sexual beings, as
procreators. "Their primary function in society," says
the expert, "is still seen as that of homemakers and
subservient to men. Till we banish this
men-are-superior mindset, crimes against women will
continue to rise."
Apart from the negative psychosocial fallout, adverse
publicity generated by reports of sexual assaults on
women, especially foreign visitors, also earns the
country a bad reputation. In fact, Tourism Minister
Ambika Soni had recently called for consultations with
state governments on measures to be adopted to counter
such trends. Already travel advisories issued by the
US, the UK, Canada and France forewarn women tourists
about the possibility of physical harassment and
molestation in major tourism destinations such as
Delhi, Agra (Uttar Pradesh), Goa and Himachal Pradesh.
"It is truly embarrassing to encounter queries about
tourists' safety on our delegations abroad," reveals a
joint secretary in the Ministry of Tourism. "While on
the one hand we're trying to project India as an
imminent superpower, on the other we have to be on the
back foot about how 'unsafe' the country can be for
women tourists."
In view of the women tourists' lack of safety, the
Centre had recently convened a meeting with state
governments to review the existing safety measures.
However, though all state governments were advised to
deploy special women police at popular tourist sites,
so far only 10 states have done so.
Embarrassment aside, maybe the government would like
to more than just 'consider' the suggestions that have
been given by the various commissions and women's
bodies, time and again.
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