Violence against Women has to be end
By Zaheerul Hassan
The violence
is an act of aggression of a person against someone or by a group of persons
against opponent cluster of persons. Sometimes, an individual perform the act
of violence against oneself and reaches at that stage of antagonism where
ultimately either lose senses or go for suicide. Beating, killing, teasing,
assaulting and raping are common forms of violence in the society. The reasons
of occurrences of such type of violence are countless but psychological
problems, religious extremists, mental sickness, poverty, mediocrity,
illiteracy, violence promoting movies, regression in criminal justice,
insufficient legal protection and unawareness to rules and regulations. Anyhow,
honour killing, sexual abuses, harassment against housed or on job women are
more widespread in South Asia.
In Pakistan
act of women rights violation is being done in conservative, feudal, religious
extremist and uneducated societies. Case of Mukhtaran Bibi was one of the examples
of cruelty of feudal system. Similarly, violence against women in Sri Lanka,
Nepal and Bangladesh is also multiplying due to increasing western influence in
youth and poverty.
In February
2013 Human Rights Watch has released a report covering violations of women
rights. India as usual secured leading position in the list of 90 countries,
which continues its intensification of sexual harassment and rape cases.
According to Thomson, Reuters Foundation report, human rights in
India took a turn for the worse in 2012. It indicated that rape, dowry deaths,
molestation, sexual harassment and other crimes against women in India rose by
6.4 percent from the previous year, with the highest number of rapes recorded
in the capital city New Delhi. Statistics of National Crimes Records Bureau
(NCRB) showed that 244,270 crimes against women were reported to the police in
2012 compared with 228,650 in 2011.
Parenthetically,
in a number of criminal cases the young Indian lot is impressed from vulgar
movies and commits the crimes like rape, kidnappings, sexual harassment,
trafficking, and molestation. Apart from routine criminality there are cases,
where cruelty against women has been done by their husbands and relatives. In
many cases the women were forced to attempt suicides, as a result of demands
for a dowry from her husband or in-laws.
The NCRB
further stated in their report that West Bengal, bordering Bangladesh, recorded
the highest number of gender crimes, i-e., 30,942. It makes 12.7 percent of
India’s total recorded crimes against women. Meenakshi Ganguly, the South Asia
director at Human Rights Watch confirmed in an interview that India experienced
continued incidents of violence against women, failed to provide protection for
freedom of speech and its major reason is the gap between noble intentions and
action. In another report “India’s War on Its Women” published in “TIME”, Jan.
14, 2013, Suketu Mehta narrated the sad incident of 23 years old student
“Nirbhaya (Fearless)” who would have been a paragon of the progressive
Indian women. She was studying to be a physiotherapist and was the only person
supporting her rural family. She was going to marry a software engineer in
February but cremated by fellow students in a bus in Delhi.
Mehta stated
that almost every one of her female friends who visited or lived in New Delhi
has faced an offensive attitude from men there. Regarding another incident she
reveals that Christine an anthropologist by profession from Paris was walking
in Connaught Place, the heart of the city, with her mother. She said that a man
came up to them and thrust his hand between Christine’s legs, grabbing her
crotch. He laughed and sauntered off. “My mother had to watch this, Christine
said, weeping.
The report
truly mentioned that Indian capital is the only city where bad things happen to
women, where political corruption had been transformed into moral corruption
and the skewed sex ratio — 866 females for every 1,000 males, because
many girls are killed at birth by parents, since they prefer son over daughter.
Moreover, Parliamentarians and Government officials are extensively found
involved in violence against women. Statistics in report expressed that six
sitting members of state legislatures have been charged with rape; two members
of Parliament and 36 state legislators have been charged with crimes against
women. In the 2009 national elections, political parties fielded more than 40
candidates who were charged with rape or other crimes against women.
In Indian
occupied Kashmir, soldiers of Armed forces involved in molestation of the
locals in the name of search. They have the legal umbrella of entering in
the houses under the shelter of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).
Similar kinds of aggression are also being done in conflict-torn areas in the
northeastern states and villages of Maoist freedom fighters. Few months
back Indian authorities arrested two young women from Mumbai, exposing Indian
state terrorism in Kashmir on twitter and Facebook.
Delhi gang
rape and murder case of medical student was one of the most mercilessness
examples of crime against women in the world. But there are many
more cases which have damaged reputation of democratic Indian in regional and
international community. Bollywood (Mumabi) and IT Hub Banglore are
two biggest cities where more than 445 women including
employee have been either raped or sexually harassed just in the last six
months till 22 June 2013.
Unfortunately,
despite condemnation of raping the student domestically and international, on
8th June 2013 another case of raping and murdering 11years old Muslim girl’s
unveiled in Nalgona. Ms. Ismath Unnisa (11 Years) daughter of Mohammed Sadiq
Ali Chand and Amena Begum, resident of Mapanam Chalka in Nalgonda District was
gang raped on 28th April 2013 and her dead body was thrown in a nearby Nala but
no one paid any attention to this incident. In fact the authorities in
collaboration with Indian media initially tried to hide the rape of the Muslim
girl. However, due to the communal pressure the case appeared on news papers
but still local police is showing reluctance in taking actions against
influential criminals. The parents of the girl have alleged that
investigating agencies are protecting real culprits and Indian police.
Anyhow, increasing
rape cases forced Dr. Manmohan Singh to constitute a special
commission for knowing the reasons, investigating and punishing the culprits in
such cases. It is also mentionable here that many lady tourists
have stopped vising India and considering it as insecure place due
to unabated sexual violence against women. On January 5, 2013
BBC published an article “The rapes That Forget India” which reveals that India
is such a country where a rape is reported every 21 minutes.
Notably, in
January 2013 a South Korean student was drugged and raped by the son of the
owner of the hotel where she was staying. In February 2013 a Chinese
woman working in Gurgaon, a town bordering the Indian capital, was also raped
by an Indian acquaintance. Again, in March 2013 a 38 year old Swiss woman was
gang-raped in a forest near Datia town by six Indians. She was on her way to
Agra from Orchha on a bicycle tour with her companion, when she was molested by
six men belonging to Indian native town. The Swiss national and her companion
were camping in the open near a forest area when armed men gang raped her,
manhandled her companion and also looted their valuables.
A British
holidaymaker in the northern city of Agra, (home to the Taj Mahal), suffered a
leg injury when she jumped out of the hotel window to save her honour as two
men entered her hotel room with the intent to molest her.
In a
notorious case five years ago, 15-year old British schoolgirl Scarlett Keeling
was raped and left to die on a beach in the tourist resort of Goa. On 31
May 2013 a young Irish woman was raped by a man in a house in Kalighat area.
The 21 years old young girl came into acquaintance with an Indian native named
Sujay Mitra in the city of Kolkata where she was celebrating her birthday. Later
Mirtra took her to his home and raped her.
A US
national was ganged raped by three men in a truck in Manali, (a resort town) on
3rd June 2013. She accepted lift in their truck and they drove her to a
selected spot where they ganged raped her. She had arrived in Manali a day
before and had been on a visit to Vashisth, a nearby tourist resort popular
with sightseers.
Most of the
western countries including UK and Swiss have already issued instructions to
women tourists to refrain from going to India due to growing risks of
insecurity and insensitivity of Indian officials, who openly plead that there
was no need to panic as foreigners are victims of such acts of crime all over
the world and that India was no exception.
In any case,
rape against women is a wickedly atrocious, shockingly dreadful and shameless
act of immorality in which anti-social elements driven by their animal instinct
demonstrate male chauvinism to molest women. It cause psychological impact with
deep seated scars of disgrace, fear and signs of incapacitation for the victim
while creating sense of insecurity and frightening humiliation among other
women. Therefore, it is suggested that UN should force her member states to
devise laws, cultural rules and state legislations explicitly provide
protection to women against such social abuses. In this context, on 4 June
2013 the Security Council has sent a strong signal to
perpetrators of sexual violence in conflict that their crimes will not be
tolerated, adopting a new resolution to strengthen efforts to end impunity for
a scourge that affects not only large numbers of women and girls but also men
and boys. While addressing a conference on the issue, Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon asked relevant United Nations entities to speed up the monitoring,
analysis and reporting arrangements on conflict-related sexual violence. He
stated that sexual violence, whenever and wherever it occurs, is a vile crime.
It must be exposed and met with the anger and action that it deserves,” Mr. Ban
said at the outset of the meeting, stressing that those who hold power and
influence have a special duty to step forward and be part of a global coalition
of champions determined to break this “evil.”
Anyhow the
violence against women can be decreased while creating awareness of rules and
regulations, educating the women and punishing the culprits immediately.
Moreover, South Asian countries have to rectify the reasons and causes of rapes
mentioned in this article.
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