Author:
Aiyushika Sharma, Student, Raffles university
On 12th Dec 2012, a young lady was gang-raped brutally on the bus this date became a date that all young generation though this date is a date of changing the peoples' mind in the light of violence against women, as a democratic country where we have so many laws for the women but still there are so many cases of violence against women. Simultaneously, a criminal offence against women is so common to us that only the cruel one affects us. Here, we talk about to give respect to the women and giving honour to her but honour is like a cheat code to control women, in the name of protecting their honour men can do anything they want that diminishes their agency, make their discussion and control their lives. And this is not happening only to the women even small girls are being molested by some peoples this is shameful.
Introduction
RAPE, FOUR LETTERS, ONE WORD, HAVING THE POWER TO DESTROY ONE SOUL.
Rape isn't just a word it can destroy a life of women as well as a life of men. We always speak about rape is like this and that but the real meaning of rape can only the person explain who suffers from this, we just can’t describe it from our daily used words. For us, the meaning of rape is simply sexual intercourse with someone without his/ her consent. But it's not just sexual intercourse it affects such a lot on society that we even can’t assume, it affects mentally, emotionally, even socially. In India, there are so a lot of cases of rape that are pending in court. In every 15 minutes one cases recorded in India, this is often so shameful. Here we always discuss women accreditation but where that's if we don’t respect girls than where is that empowerment. And therefore the thing is that if rape happens to a woman, she faces such a lot of problems and our society always blames her that this is happening simply because of wearing that short dresses and going outside from home late night. This is often the thinking of our society or the ideology of our society, here in India we use to mention “BETI BACHAO, BETI PADHAO” all the time but doesn’t implement it really why?
Every single day once we open our newspaper and skim it there's always one or more horrible, terrific attack on women in one after the other and come again to that question which we keep on asking to ourselves to prevent, we do programmes about it, come on streets, we use to try to do protest against it, we use to do candlelight march and say our government to mend it because the effect of this is on our society and at the end, it carries on. And again asking ourselves to actually make it stop and the way we provide safety to women in order that she feels safe during this environment.
Legal aspects
The Nirbhaya gang rape[1], in the case of Mukesh & Anr vs. State For Nct Of Delhi & Ors on 5 May, 2017, from which whole India again a force to consider about the protection of women and made the government think about the laws so many amendments were made in Indian penal code after this brutal rape done. This case brings all India together but the thing is why after the rape was done and therefore the innocent soul was gone, what her fault was? Although, This case bring whole India together such a lot of peoples come and wants justice because rape is not just affect the victim it affect country as whole but still nothing is happen and the justice is to serve after seven years of this case by the struggle of her mother isn’t it wrong, This is often not the only case recently in the case of Priyanka reddy who is a veterinary doctor brutally gang-raped by four beasts in Shamshbad near Hyderabad, the fellow pretends to help her and after that they raped her. This is so mean that women of our country is not safe we even can’t imagine that form what situation a girl is being through when this cruelty is happen to herself. As a women we are afraid to go outside this is like being a women is a sin now. And if we talks about Unnao rape case, gang rape with 17 years old girl and the thing is by former BJP member now he is in sentence of life imprisonment. This is why peoples don’t want to give birth to a girl child, such a lot of rape cases are there like 16 years old girl was gang-raped by six men and the thing is three of them are minors, six men a gang-raped 19 years old woman in front of her father in Bihar, the list of this continues. And here we are talking about those cases which are going to the judicial process but still, there are such a lot of cases that never go reported and therefore the reason is that the social-cultural norms create a culture of silence, especially it put the owes to the victim to prove her innocence, the victim has to prove herself that why is she wearing that dress and why she is there at that time so that this burden itself prevent victim to reporting whatever happen to herself. And if she made that guts to mention that from what she is been go through and now to take justice this is a too long and lengthy process where the victim has to relive her worst experience on the daily basis.
In India every 15 minutes, a man commits rape. If we talk about Delhi which is a capital of India and also rape capital of the nation, every day six cases of rape has been registered in Delhi. There are numerous cases of crime against women reported within the capital out of which less than 20 per cent convicted are in the custody, so many cases and no conviction this is the fact that women of this country are sacred. India is the nation where we are pride to have the largest democracy in the world, where every person have equal right and have right to live with the dignity no matter what is his/ her gender but still there is something which is lacking. In the case of Vishaka & Ors vs. State of Rajasthan & Ors[2] the Supreme Court said that sexual harassment is a violation of fundamental rights that's article 14[3] and article 15[4] of the Indian constitution. If a girl is being raped it gives so much worst effect on the society, this is not done on the only one women but somehow we all we affected by this. Some say the reason behind this is pornography but if pornography the one reason it is already banned in India but the cases and not declining but increasing day by day, this is the problem of mind-set and lack of education in the peoples and we have to aware them. The government should take some action towards this. The increase in numbers of cases in crime against women is not good in favour of our society, and for our nation. Peoples should know the way to respect women.
Impact on women
This is not just happening during this era it’s perhaps been happening within the course of human history which causes you to a bit depressed. The cruelty of rape, torture, etc. is running for decades and not only in India, but this is also happening everywhere on the planet. This is often a worldwide problem and so when we’re looking solution to it then also we've to look what's causing it. This is such a serious issue and there we need to have a bipartisan and non-political discussion.
35000+ cases are being registered every year in India. Without delay 93 rape cases are being registered in India daily.
If a woman raped by the person, she is being though from such a large amount of thinks we can’t assume she doesn’t have guts to inform this even to her parents and if she tells all of this to her parents then there's no action taken by her parents because they think it gives effect to her future and society, which is so wrong and if her parents take action and she doesn’t get justice then. We always ask girls to don’t go outside and don’t wear that dress because we all know this is not safe but why we don’t say it to a boy if we educate them and teach them to respect women then only this might end. And we have to end it gives so adverse effect to the society and its culture. In Indian culture we use to relinquish pride to girl child we assume her a DEVI and after that, we hear thereto shameful news this is often just can’t bearable. Our constitution provides us with our fundamental rights which include right to life and personal dignity and a few people violet it by doing such actions which aren't compensable. Rape is one amongst that topic on which debate occupied central and states each and every day it becomes a subject for politics, so many parties come every year and provide the promise to do so many think for girls so that girls can live peacefully but no one does that. And the result's nothing but again a woman is being raped by some beast. If we talk in context of Hyderabad horror and what is happening in Unnao and so many shocking incidents day after day, especially we have to see what it really does with the confidence of women in this country who want to go out and simply earn the living. Women security is an economic issue too, because how does it affect the participation in the labour force and by affecting their participation in the economy.
The question is arising that DO WOMEN REALLY FEEL SAFE IN INDIA? Or we may say that is really women feel safe within the environment where she born, where she grows?
Conclusion
As long as a system like patriarchy persists and that we continue upholding it, there’s no escaping the sort of violence it unleashes. It’s not the skirts, it’s not the burqa, and it’s the mentality of the people that should be changed. Sadly, now in India rape has become so common that only the most violent one shocks us, and therefore the truth is we are all the part of this problem and we have to stop rapes. We have to understand this is an emerging situation government and the peoples of India must take some steps to stop it or otherwise this cycle continuing. We are the enablers, we are the protesters, and we are the breeding ground of this mind-set. To stop this we have to know why is this happening, Not only the government but we have to take only one step to stop this by giving education to the peoples and teaching them to respect women. Rape culture may seem more pervasive in some places, more evident in certain faces but the truth is that it is all around us so we don’t have to ask that why so many cases are happening the answer is right here.
References
[1] (2017) 6 SCC 1 : (2017) 2 SCC (Cri) 673 [2] (1997) 6 SCC 241, AIR 1997 SC 3011, (1998) BHRC 261, (1997) 3 LRC 361, (1997) 2 CHRLD 202 [3] The Constitution Of India, Article14: Equality before law The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth. [4] The Constitution Of India, Article15:
Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth (1) The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them (2) No citizen shall, on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them, be subject to any disability, liability, restriction or condition with regard to (a) access to shops, public restaurants, hotels and palaces of public entertainment; or (b) the use of wells, tanks, bathing ghats, roads and places of public resort maintained wholly or partly out of State funds or dedicated to the use of the general public (3) Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any special provision for women and children (4) Nothing in this article or in clause ( 2 ) of Article 29 shall prevent the State from making any special provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes
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