EDITORIAL
India is where women were once respected. It is also here that women deities are still worshipped and pujas offered to invoke their blessings. Kali and Durga pujas are the two major festivals around here, for instance. The reality, however, is different at the human interaction level today. The iterations of rapes all across the country is proof of how a society’s moral fabric is decaying and degenerating. The malaise is evident all over, and across states.
What is more shocking is that the rate of occurrence of such incidents is increasing at an alarming rate. New laws in this respect, introduced after the sensational Nirbhaya gang-rape incident in Delhi, are proving to be of little help. The fight against gender crime seems to be a losing one.
The year began on a sordid note with a seven-year-old girl being sexually assaulted by a physical education teacher in a school in West Bangalore’s Byatarayanapur. Several cases of sexual abuse have been reported from cosmopolitan Bangalore’s schools in recent months. In the beginning of January, a court in Delhi voiced concern over the rise in crimes against women in the national capital with the judge even observing that such crimes were on the rise. Delhi has already earned notoriety in this respect long ago. Reports have just surfaced of a mentally-challenged 17-year-old being raped in a government-run residential school in Nagpur, resulting in her pregnancy. There are several instances in Orissa as well, where the past week saw a minor being girl being raped in Niali.
These incidents just go to show that those fighting crime against women must be more alert and proactive. Women have a right to live on equal terms with men in every society. They are, in fact, called the better halves. The battle for their safety and protection must be fought at all levels, with all sections of the society taking an active interest in ensuring a safe environment for women.
For the fight to succeed, it is essential to sensitise people about gender crimes. People also need to be sensitised about the precautions that could be taken, as well as ways and means to resist sexual and other assaults on them. Women are not commodities for sex and they must be treated with respect. The society as a whole would need to change its corrupted mindset. Sensitisation must begin from schools.
Girls and women need to feel safe not only on the roads and in educational institutions but also in offices and at homes. Systems must be put in place in a way that women who work in offices are able to register complaints of inappropriate behaviour. Offices should comprehensively address these complaints. This has been mandated under the Vishaka Guidelines, a set of procedural guidelines to deal with cases of sexual harassment, through an order promulgated by the Supreme Court in 1977, which were superseded by the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act in 2013.
The scourge also affects homes — of men raping neighbours, including minors, and even women of their own household.
Law enforcement must be bolstered. Cases of crime against women must be dealt with severely and promptly. Cases of sexual harassment cannot be allowed to drag on and on. The sentence in such cases must be exemplary so as to deter others from committing similar crimes. Besides, the offender must not be allowed to get off lightly just because he holds a position of influence in society. Instead, he must be dealt with more severely as his position would demand that he set an example for others.
Notably, this was the view expressed by the judge who in January awarded a seven-year jail term to a senior National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) official for raping and deceitfully marrying a widow after concealing his first marriage. “The fact that the convict is a gazetted officer serving in NHRC and son of a retired assistant registrar of the high court makes the offence committed by him more serious. Persons like the convict are expected to exhibit a moral character of the highest degree and serve as an example in the society,” the judge had ruled.
All these aside, ultimately it is the mindset of the society that has to change so as to effect a real change on the ground. Unless the society is convinced that women deserve to be respected and are not to be treated as objects to fulfill men’s base desires, crimes against women will continue unchecked.
