A sexual offence is committed against a child in India every 15 minutes. That is 4 children every hour, 96 children every day, 2880 Children every month and 34560 children every year.
Just because each case doesn’t make it to the headlines doesn’t mean it is not happening. When a particularly gruesome instance does make it to the news we try to avoid it as much as we can because it makes us uncomfortable or is upsetting.
News Flash: Closing our eyes doesn’t make the problem go away.
Recently, an Ordinance providing the death penalty for rapists of girls below 12 years of age, increasing the punishment for rape and other stringent provisions was promulgated. Obviously, these were supposed to be a quick fix for the ongoing upheaval caused by recent rape cases involving minors in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua and Uttar Pradesh's Unnao and was meant to drown out the hue and cry UNTIL NEXT TIME. Because we all know there will be a next time, for nothing has changed. If prescribing jail time was a deterrent grave enough, we won't be seeing a progressive rise in such crimes despite each amendment enhancing punishment for rape. Every time there is some kind of uproar about such cases the government passes new laws and everybody, including the public just wash our hands off as if justice has been done.
There is a popular saying in law- Not only must Justice be done; it must also be seen to be done."
I would like to rephrase it- “Not only must justice be seen to be done, it must be done.
Truth be told, this ordinance is nowhere even close to the measures the government or the executive should be taking. And it is not just their responsibility to act. As citizens of this country, it is our responsibility as much as the government’s to do anything and everything in our power. Once fancied by the world for being the land of diversity, lately, India has been getting nothing but flak from the people worldwide for its state of affairs. So much so, that people are branding it as the land of rapists. So do we just shrug this off as another ramification of our patriarchal culture? Do we need more humiliation to awaken our conscience?
For starters, we could stop questioning the victim’s integrity every step of the way. Another important thing, women DO NOT need the so-called protection or saving from their male counterparts, It is the men that need saving from their own thoughts. We just need men to be civil and human enough not to prey on the opposite gender at the earliest opportunity. How come it is only men who find it difficult to control their sexual desires? How come most women don't grope every man they like in public transport? Are they not attracted to men? We, as a society have some serious introspection to do for we have validated this behaviour through our mute spectatorship. Even worse, we have adapted to this by curtailing the freedom of our women relatives/friends while those perverts are roaming scot-free in the society making it a living hell for women out there.
And it is about time that we don't draft legislations in isolation but also account for the attitude of the people and society. For instance, the burden of proving the consent to sexual intercourse to escape the liability for rape under the Indian Penal Code (Sec 375) lies on the accused, once the victim claims to the contrary, but as the practical exigencies have it, it is invariably the woman who has to discharge this burden because the society first wants to know why she was there, at what time, with whom, did it really happen or could she have inadvertently given consent through her dressing sense, posture or any other covert action? The sheer apathy that the investigative agencies have towards such brave women who muster the courage to come forward in the hope of Justice is just heartbreaking. As if any answer to these questions (or so-called moral policing) could justify this barbarism! So why do we put the victim through this agony again?
And there goes another piece of legislation, perfect on paper and in theory but completely redundant in reality.
What is the use of these laws if the conviction is as low as 25% and there aren’t proper systems in place to protect the victim and her family. It is also not justice if the offender is punished 20 years later. Even the strictest of laws are redundant if there isn’t a system in place for enforcement of such laws. That is exactly where we are lacking.
By Shalini Yadav & Manasvi Neyol
