Safety of Women
By Er Taraprasad Mishra
Jajpur, Octo 24 : Safety of Women in India has become a major issue in India now. The crime rates against women in the country have only risen to a great extent. Women think twice before stepping out of their homes, especially at the night.
This is, unfortunately, the sad reality of our country that lives in constant fear. Women in India have been given equal rights as men; however, people do not follow this rule. They contribute to the growth and development of our country; still, they are living in fear.
Women are now on respected positions in the country, but if we take a look behind the curtains, we see even then they are being exploited. Each day we read about horrific crimes being committed against women in our country like it’s a norm. Not a day goes by where you don’t hear of the news of a crime against women in India.
In fact, there are at least five news articles that tell us about the horrific details of the various crimes. It is extremely painful to watch the status of women’s safety in India, especially in a country where women are given the stature of goddesses. The list of crimes against women is quite long, to say the least. Acid attack is becoming very normal is various parts of the country. The criminal throws acid on the face of the victim to destroy their lives completely.
Nonetheless, India has a lot of strong acid attack survivors who are battling for their lives and trying to lead their lives independently. Furthermore, domestic violence and honor killings are very common. The wife stays in an abusive relationship because of the fear of society.
The family kills their daughters in the name of honor to keep up with the reputation of their family. Similarly, female foeticide is yet another common crime. Due to the regressive thinking, people kill daughters before they are born.
The list continues as crimes against women are on the rise. Other crimes also include child marriages, child abuse, rape, dowry deaths, trafficking and many more. Although the list of crimes is very long, we can take measures to ensure women’s safety in our country. Firstly, the government must make stringent laws that ensure the punishment of criminals immediately.
Fast track courts must be set so the victim gets justice instantly. This will serve as a great example for other men to not commit crimes against women. Most importantly, men must be taught to respect women from an early age. They must consider women as equals so they don’t even think of harming them. When you consider someone inferior, you tend to oppress them.
If this thinking goes away, half of the crimes will automatically end. In short, crimes against women are stopping the growth of our country. We must not put the blame on women and ask them to be extra careful. Instead, we must ask the men to change their thinking and work to make the world a safer place for women.
Women in India-a better half of Indian society, today, are becoming the most vulnerable section as far as their safety and security is concerned. When we turn the pages of a newspaper, we come across many headlines reporting cases of sexual assault, molestation, sexual harassment, rapes, trafficking, ill treatment of women in houses, violence against women in remote areas etc.
What does this indicate? This certainly implies that there has been an increasing trend of such sexual overdrives in present generation. Our supreme law of land i.e. our Indian Constitution has envisaged a dream of true social, economic and political democracy which guarantees the rich and moral principles of equality (of status, opportunity, law) for our citizens but this has not yet been fully realized.
Still our better halves are unsafe and unsecure towards the realization of freedom and liberty. It’s unbearable to imagine the plight of women who are sufferers of such crimes. It’s a jolt on the confidence of the women, of society and on our judicial system. Besides it has much of cascading effects which affects her life. But do we think who is responsible for this? Is it only the lapse in legal system of our country or the police or the public where such incidence occurs or the Indian society as a whole.
We generally use to play the blame game for any such incidence and hence have not succeeded to reach to the root of the problem. For a better understanding we can say that any problem has definitely two approaches of solution, the first is short term or immediate solution and the second one is long term solution. These may be visualized as preventive or curative in nature.
Firstly, let us approach towards certain short term and preventive solutions. This would mean to have a multipronged strategy with the participation of multistakeholders of society. As good citizens, we have a fundamental duty to contribute towards bringing an order to ensure dignity and respect for women so that she can also enjoy her human rights and fundamental rights with sense of pride, freedom and confidence.
To ensure this at every level the society must work together to give an edge to the solution. For e.g. women may be provided with such devices which could provide her location using GPS technology to a central control room of police or send messages of her address to nearby locations.
But this requires a lot of work relating to scaling the enrollment of women biodata showing her photographs and her permanent or temporary address into a national database system. Other area of interest would be reform in police system.
Allocation of women police in every area and their continuous monitoring which also requires participatory attitudes of govt. Such interventions can also be a preventive solution. This also requires installation of CCTV cameras at strategic places, beefing up the police security systems and closely monitoring them. Also reforms in our legal system is required such as stringent punishment which are non bailable in nature. This could act as friction to those who perpetrate crime. Even though these suggestions are urgently required as proactive measures but since they require rigorous effort for implementation it may be not be practically realized.
So we must have remedial or curative measures such as fast track courts especially dedicated to deal only with these offences and crimes. These can be made responsible to clear the cases on day to day basis with fair trial as its core principle. There must be allocation of woman personnel who should be dedicated to alleviate the trauma of the victimized women. As we have already discussed that these women victims not only undergo physical but also mental trauma as their confidence in the system and society is jolted up.
Hence trained personnel are needed to boost up the victims confidence. All the above measures and interventions are supportive in nature .i.e they act as supportive infrastructure to ensure and protect women from being victimized.
But let us also look to the other face of the coin. Since only ensuring a strict legal system may also prove to be sometime oppressive as the agencies enforcing the acts in strict sense may violate tenets of human rights which is also not acceptable. Hence a balance is required to be kept with while implementation also.
So far we have dealt with the requirement of stringer laws, legal and administrative system to deal with such sexual overdrive. But it requires further delving into the matter.
We all know that India has been a land following various social customs, traditions and certain sets of religious beliefs. These customs has a deep rooted place in the core of our minds and hearts of every people of India which has defined our lifestyle, our thoughts, our expressions and our beliefs be it man or a woman.
This has given to the males, the feeling of masculinity in every aspect of their acts and thoughts. Indian males have thus perceived themselves as physically, mentally superior than their counterparts. Indian women also have accepted to treat their males as superior. This can be seen as women still perform the rituals of Karwa Chauthh where they signify men as god.
Other instance can be seen in parents preferring male child over female. In every aspect of the life, women are denied or given less preference over male whether it is for giving education or access to health care. They are always required to be within their limitations and the male counterparts have freedom in this regard.
This system thus gives a feeling in male that they are superior and hence dominate over women. This instills in male a sense of hatred against women if they see a woman crossing their limitations. So the problem is just not the case of one or two factors, but a sum total of a large number of factors. For this we need to plan more integrative approach to arrive at a solution. This requires a large scale and an integrated social reform whereby we need to channelize the potential of woman into the stream of development.
This can be brought through measures such as real education emphasizing on the quality of education, through enhanced moral and spiritual teachings so that the seed of enmity which is sown through these customs and traditions gets deeply uprooted. Moral and spiritual inclination of education will impart impetus to curb the sexual desires of men and women and would not let them indulge in committing such heinous crimes.
This solution is an ideal solution which would need a more comprehensive support of all the stakeholders of societies. Henceforth, to see India as a more flourished nation as envisaged in our Constitution, it is time we need to realize what is right and what is wrong and act in an integrated manner so that women can be channelized into mainstream of development and thus contribute to socio-economic prosperity of the nation.
Protection of women in India has become a crucial issue. We cannot assure the safety of the women nowadays because if we read a newspaper or go on social media, the news of girls getting raped by cab drivers, acid burning, child marriage, domestic violence, molestation is flooded from different parts of India. Such incidents have created fear and fright among young girls and women.
They don’t feel safe in their own country. In rural areas, the conditions are worse where women are burned and killed by in-laws or tortured for dowry. Moreover, female infanticide is still practised in some remote areas. The most dreadful event that the country faced was the Nirbhaya gang-rape incident.
To curb such horrendous crimes against women, the government has passed laws for women’s safety. They are Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929, Hindu Marriage Act 1955, Dowry Prohibition Act 1961, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1886, Indian Divorce Act 1969, Equal Remuneration Act 1976, Prohibition of Sex Selection Act 1994, Protection of women from Domestic Violence Act 2005, Sexual Harassment of Women at Work Place Act 2013 etc. and many more.
In India, women have the provision of equal rights; however, people violate such rights which causes crime against them. It is the pivotal issue that India is facing for a long time. Women have to think before stepping out of homes, regarding their clothes and the kind of lifestyle they seek. Due to the increasing violence, their minds are consumed by fear and fright, which affects their growth and development.
Though the nation is developing in terms of economy, still in some places they do not receive the dignity and respect they deserve and often looked down. Each day, we hear and read a piece of new news about the terrible crimes against them. The violence against women is mushrooming at an alarming rate every single day.
Some of the expressions of violence are not considered crimes because of Indian culture and values. They go unreported and undocumented. Due to pervasive faulty justice system, there is no termination to such hideous crimes. The list of violence is huge and continue to grow long. Husbands and in-laws try to extort money or expensive valuables through dowry.
If the wife fails to provide them with the things, they demand then they face continuous torture and harassment. This results in wife committing suicide or the in-laws killing them brutally. When the dowry death is done by burning the wife, then it is termed as bride burning, which is quite prevalent in remote areas. It is the killing of a family member who brings dishonour and shame upon them.
For instance, women are killed if she refuses to enter an arranged marriage, commit adultery, choosing a partner that family disapprove and victim of rape. It takes place in local villages and the northern region of India. When a girl child is born, she is immediately killed after birth because she is considered as bad omen and burden on the father.
A woman is forced to have an abortion if she carries a female foetus inside her womb. In India, having a son means getting security to the family during old-age and conducting last rites for deceased parents.India is among one of the fifty counties who haven’t outlawed marital rape. Around 20% of men force their wives or partners to have sex.
If she refuses, then she is physically tortured and sexually harassed. Young girls are abducted or sold off by their family members or relatives into prostitution. They are exported to other countries far away from their origin and homeland.
It is also termed as domestic abuse, family violence, battering and intimate partner violence. Domestic violence is a kind of abuse by one partner on another in a close relationship such as marriage and dating.
It can be subtle or coercive and includes physical, verbal, emotional or sexual abuse. Acid throwing is a brutal act of throwing acid on the person’s body or face with the intention to torture, disfigure or kill. They take place if a girl rejects a marriage proposal or refusal for sexual advances. Sometimes, it can even occur due to business disputes or property issues.
It is the most common and vicious crime against women. Women are killed, tortured and tormented. The Nirbhaya gang rape experienced a significant increase in rapes. Many cases go unreported, or complaints are withdrawn due to family honour. Women do not receive justice, and the claims in the court keep on piling. The laws passed by the government requires refinement and changes.
The new rules should be stringent that ensures rapid punishment to the criminals instead of hearings. The police and the judiciary must act quickly in taking action against the culprit. Moreover, men must be instilled the importance and value of a woman in their life. A positive attitude needs to be developed in terms of their equality and growth.
Once the thinking towards women changes among the men folks then the world will automatically be free from violence against women. The cases will decrease, and the nation will develop. Women will feel accepted and safer in their own homes and society.
Lastly, in the words of Charlotte Bunch, Sexual, racial, gender violence, and other forms of discrimination and violence in a culture cannot be eliminated without changing culture. Culture doesn’t make us; we create culture.
