Open Access Research Article
A SHORT NOTE ON GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE
Published Paper
Article Details
A
SHORT NOTE ON GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE
AUTHORED BY - AJAY SINGH & SHIVANGI
PANDEY
We have been hearing about numerous socio-
legal issues all over the world but here there would only be the information
residing in India i.e. gender-based violence. Inspite of introduction of
several laws against this type of violence, the violence subsists in one or the
other form whether it is physical, mental, psychological, and sexual and even
more which we cannot examine.
It has
been our history that and even known to all that India is a patriarchal based
country. It has its roots deep beneath. We know that everything needs balance
whether the case be this. From earlier times women or girls have been
considered to be a material and they need to be pardanashin. Irrespective of
the caste or place of birth, it subsists.
So, if we go by the dictionary meaning of the
word "violence", it means a threatening behaviour which can cause
harm to someone physically. So,
violence against women means the act of
physically assaulting woman or girls due to the category of sex they
belong to.
Violence Against women has been defined by
the UN Declaration of Violence Against Women, 1993 as "any act of
gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical,
sexual, or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts,
coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in
private life."
Article-2 of the UN Declaration of Violence
Against Women has listed out some forms of violence. But with the increase in
crime, the violence has also increased and has taken different forms whether it
be rape, dowry death, sexual harassment & many.
As per
a report, 42 women are raped daily, approx 18 cases occur relating to dowry
death and many go unheard. Per hour 5 women face cruelty, 4 face molestation.
Whether it be an infant girl child or be it a woman of 80 years, no age group
has been left unraped.
If we take a statistical data of violence
against women from 2015-2023, there has been 51.6% femicide, 27.4% family
violence, 9.7% sexual assault, 9.7%
physical assault and 1.6% torture.
To
protect them several women- specific Acts have been foumulated. Few of them
are-
1) Indian Penal Code, 1860
2)
Indian Evidence Act, 1872
3) The Sexual Harassment of women at
Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition & Redressal) Act, 2013
4) The
Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987.
5) Protection of Women from Domestic Violence
Act, 2005 , and many more.
FEW
IMPORTANT CASES RELATED TO WOMEN VIOLENCE
1. Mukesh v. State for NCT of Delhi and Ors.,
[1]
The case commonly known as the Nirbhaya Case.
This case revolves around both rape and murder of a 23 years old girl who was
returning by the public bus with her friend. The bus had 6 men who gang-raped
her brutally and inserted an iron rod inside private parts and threw her friend
out of the bus. The girl died after being taken to the hospital. This is a case
which occurred in 2012 but the judgment delivered took a long time. The girls’s
entire internal organs were torn off.
Out of the six, four of them were punished
with the rarest of the rare punishment i.e. death punishment, one was sent to
the reformative house and one died. Though the decision was taken in 2020,
still, the Nirbhaya case brought a huge amount of change in the laws relating
to the safety of the women and the violence done against her.
2. Vishakha v. State of Rajasthan and Ors.[2]
In this case there was a woman named Bhanwari
Devi who worked for the welfare of the women under a project run by the
Government of India in 1985. She raised her voice against the rape committed on
her neighbour. Once it happened that she raised her voice against an infant
marriage which was being performed by the infant girl’s family. She reached the
place where marriage ceremony was being held and tried to stop the marriage but
all went in vain. Even the police officers did not support her in stopping the
marriage.
After few months five members of the same
family attacked Bhanwari Devi’s husband and mercilessly gang-raped her. After
that the police officer denied filing an F.I.R. for atleast 52 hours due to
which all evidences relating to the rape committed got destroyed.
Later a women’s right group named Vishakha
filed a PIL. The Apex Court said that women needs to be safe from harassment
and sexual abuse at her workplace and thus made an Act containing guidelines
for the protection, prevention and redressal of any harassment against women at
their workplace. The Act was named as “The Sexual Harassment of women at
Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition & Redressal) Act, 2013”.
3. Shraddha Murder Case
Another heart threatening case occurred in
2022 where a girl named Shraddha Walkar, 27 years old, was living with her
boyfriend named Aaftab Poonawala in live-in-relationship. They were living
together for past two to three years where Aaftab numerous times assaulted
Shraddha and in May 2022 he murdered her mysteriously and cut her body into 35
pieces and kept it in refrigerator for 6 months and disposed it piece by piece
at night in the forest. Later, after six months he got caught and got arrested
by the Delhi Police on dated 22 November 2022.
Shraddha’s father after that demanded death
penalty for Aaftab.
This incident shook everyone and left
everyone questioning the decision of Shraddha of not leaving Aaftab after being
assaulted by him several times.
4. Aruna Shanbaug v. Union of India[3]
This case is a very important case relating
to euthanasia. In this case it happened that Aruna who was a nurse in the
hospital was changing her dress in the basement of the hospital where a sweeper
entered the basement. He put a dog chain over her neck and intercarnally raped
her as she was going through menstruation. This choking stopped the passage of
oxygen in her brain as a result of which she suffered from coma, cervical cord
injury and even more injuries. The next morning she was found lying on the
ground.
She remained for forty-two years in the
persistent vegetative stage. Her friend appealed in court for giving Aruna
passive euthanasia because there was no chance of her returning in normal stage
and only Aruna was the one who was suffering a lot. Though the Court did not
grant her the permission of passive euthanasia but after this case Right to Die
was granted to an individual. Later, after 42 years she died due to pneumonia.
There are uncountable cases where we can easily
see how society has reacted and treated women with violence. Even now while we
are writing this article 6 out of 10 women or girls must be facing violence.
REMEDIES.
There can be no exact remedy to cure this
socio- legal issue but with our immense approach towards changing the mentality
of society, may bring reforms to a large extent. For that, the important things
we need to do are:
1) Reducing the patriarchal and gender stereotype based mentality- No
child is born with this type of mindset. It develops due to the environment in
which they are brought up. A girl is given a kitchen set to play with which
symbolises that her life is just to be involved in the daily households, taking
care of her family and feeding them and on the same place a boy is given toys
like robots, heroes and many more to play with due to which this gender
stereotype mindset develops from childhood which needs to be prevented.
This society demands equality & balance
between men and women. According to Article-14 of the Indian Constitution,
every individual in India shall have equal rights before law. According to
Article-15 of the Indian Constitution, no discrimination shall be made on the
basis of sex, caste, creed, place of birth or race.
2) Education- Lack of education is one of the main
reasons in of any violence in our country. We know that till date India has not
obtained 100%. literaly rate. India is struggling for it. Even today there are
many places in india where women are not sent to schools even just to have the
primary education. Lack of education bars them from knowing their rights to
take the violence to be their fate.
Here, even sex-education plays a majou role.
Sex education can bridge the gap of inequality between men and women. Lack of
education brings superiority or masculinity in men and inferiority in women. Article-21 A of the Indian Constitution
speaks about the Right to education to all.
3) Dowry System - A thing which has been a part of India
since time unknown; a major reason to consider women a burden leading to
violence against them. This violence can be in the form of discrimination
towards her health, her studies, her food and many.
There
is Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961.
Sec-304 of IPC too penalises dowry death,
still it continues.
4) Religious Practices - The
best example of this is Sati Pratha i.e. a system in which wife of a deceased
old man had to be burnt alive in the funeral of her dead husband.
Other example is devdasi system, where in the
name of God, girls get raped by the pujaris of temples. If these systems
continue to prevail then, violence against women cannot be stopped.
CONCLUSION
Women are not object who has to be kept in a
museum. She too is a human who can breath, can feel. She needs to be set free
from the cage. If this violence subsists, then one day, there will only be men
and not women all over the world. As much as the world needs a man that much
the world needs a woman. If there is no women that means there is no life. Life
continues in this universe only till there subsists women. If there are
Tridevas as per Hindu mythology, there also is the presence of Tridevis as per the
same Hindu mythology.
Beyonce once said "I want to build a
community where women of all races can communicate and continue to support and
take care of each other. I want to give women a space to feel their own
strength and tell their stories. That is power."
[2] (1997) 6 SCC 241for further inquiry visit "Sexual harassment at workplace". The Indian
Express. 26 January 2010.
Article Information
A SHORT NOTE ON GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE
Authors: AJAY SINGH, SHIVANGI PANDEY
- Journal IJLRA
- ISSN 2582-6433
- Published 2023/09/05
- Issue 7
About Journal
International Journal for Legal Research and Analysis
- Abbreviation IJLRA
- ISSN 2582-6433
- Access Open Access
- License CC 4.0
All research articles published in International Journal for Legal Research and Analysis are open access and available to read, download and share, subject to proper citation of the original work.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of International Journal for Legal Research and Analysis.