Posted By Smita - Kanungo On Mar 5, 2010

Categories:

Gender Issues,

Every 30 minute or so a woman is being raped in this country
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Posted By Smita - Kanungo On Mar 5, 2010

Categories:

Gender Issues,

 

Crime Against Women in India

The Refusal of the Society to Acknowledge this Truth

 

 

Towering malls, fancy and up market offices, swish restaurants- is this how we relate development and good governance with? Does safety for women mean anything to the administration and the political dictates? Is it a part of any major political manifestoes? The whole of this country is reeking with crime against women. A crime of all kinds: heard and unheard of. Incidents such as Rape, sexual exploitation, eve teasing, public groping, dowry death, mercy killing, trafficking of women and child, female infanticide and gender biasness: this is what an average Indian woman has to face in India, a country so intolerant of its other half of the population. This country has not even spared the foreign tourists.

Anger, shock, fear and extreme hatred, is what I am going through after getting to know the plight of the two girls from the Northeast part of India. On December 13 2008, they were brutally molested by their landlord and his accomplice in Gurgaon (phase I), after they refused to give in to their forced demands for sex. As they protected their dignity, the girls were kicked and brutalized with heavy iron rods, leaving behind mental scars to last them a lifetime. The police further added to their woes by conveniently dropping charges of molestation from the report. As usual, the culprits are out with their head held high and presumably feeling proud too. I wonder what these girls did to deserve such an inhuman treatment. Simple: they committed the crime of stepping out of their house with dreams in their eyes of achieving greater things in life, of wanting to share the responsibility of their parents, of wanting to be treated equal in this society. The same society which kills a girl even before she is born, the same society which doesn’t even blink as women get raped in daylights, or are traded and sold to feed the family or pockets of some soulless people.

According to a last year’s report by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), there were 20737 reported rape cases and 38734 cases of sexual molestation. Among other crimes, crime against woman has increased by manifold. There has been a jump of 700% since the time NCRB started keeping records. As per the same report, Delhi reported 29.5% (524 out of 1,775) of total rape cases, 31.8% cases (1,021 out of 3,207) of kidnapping & abduction of women,15.6% cases (111 out of 711) of dowry deaths, 14.2% cases (1,711 out of 12,031) of cruelty by husband and relatives and 21.5% cases (744 out of 3,463) of molestation. The picture is almost the same, be it Gurgaon, Mumbai, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab or some nondescript town or village. The fact of the matter is; this country is extremely unsafe for women. 

As far as possible we go out in groups and if possible avoid auto rickshaws in the evening, this way it is a lot safer, shares a Delhi University student. Keeping pepper spray in my hand bag gives me a lot of confidence, since I am a working woman and most of the times, need to put in late hours in the office and therefore reach home late, mentions Nita Ray, who works with a law firm. Classes on self defense should be made mandatory for girl students, recommends Anamika Shrivastava, a mother of two daughters. 

As a woman, I have been forced to feel paranoid about my surroundings and safety. As a citizen, I am deeply frustrated and angry. And I am sure I am not alone in this feeling.