Who is Responsible for the increase in the number of Rapes in the Country ? A. Police B. Judicial System C. Society Even While we Worship Females as Goddesses in temples, the society at large considers them merely as objects and commodities. Females are killed before birth, starved and neglected as babies, denied education, respect, safety, freedom, brought up to be bartered into marriage, beaten, raped and burned. Putting the blame entirely on Police and Judiciary would be really wrong. Society, is the main culprit for the rise in atrocities against women. Rape is not simply about law and order, or about deranged individuals.
Nor is the problem going to be solved by more laws, more police on our streets, more CCTV Cameras on our buses or stiffer sentences for rapists. These will address only the symptoms. It is important to address the disease. Why Death Penalty is not the Right Legal Response ? At Present, the rate of conviction of rape crimes is a mere 26% . Death Penalty will decrease this rate of conviction further as the judge will be hesitant in awarding it; it is given only in rarest of the rare crimes. Further, making it mandatory will make it more likely that a rapist kills his victim. How Castration would not be a detterent ?
Rape is not about Sex. Rape is about Power, Violence, Intimidation and humiliation. Sex is only a mechanism to achieve those aims. So, What is the Solution ? [tabcontainer] [tabtext]Quality of Policing[/tabtext] [tabtext]Judiciary[/tabtext] [tabtext]Workplaces[/tabtext] [tabtext]Schools and Educational Instituitions[/tabtext] [tabtext]Role Models[/tabtext] [tabtext]Parents and Society[/tabtext][tabtext]Youths[/tabtext] [/tabcontainer] [tabcontent] In Delhi, the ratio of police to the population is 500:1 Lakh, in neighbouring UP which contributes several districts to the National Capitol Region, it is only 170: 1 Lakh.
As of Jan 1, 2011 there were only 442 Women Police stations across India. 13 States and UT’s including Delhi are still to open Women Police Stations. The State Government should make it mandatory to open Women Police stations and should focus on setting up women’s cell or desk at each station so that more and more women can go there freely and report crime being committed against them. – Fast track courts should be set up for all cases related to women harassment. – Conviction and Stringent Punishment must be delivered within a period not exceeding 6 months.
Trials of Rape cases have subjected rape victims to the worst kind of punishment imaginable. Years and years of constantly having to relive a traumatic experience, often in the presence of those responsible, is an unbearable price to pay for justice both delayed and denied. Companies must streamline their Pick and drop facilities, introduce GPS enabled Cabs, have Police Verification of Drivers and tighten rules like making it Compulsory For Women not to be dropped last.
While many Women/ladies out there may raise their voice against it, but there should be compulsory Self defence classes for Girls and they should be taught to differentiate between a good touch and a bad touch. (As most cases of rape involve Convicts who is known to the Victim). They should be taught to use their gut feeling and avoid a person or situation which does not feel safe. We all know Prevention is better than cure and it’s no harm taking precautionary measures. There are hardly any role models for the Indian male.
Take Sachin Tendulkar, he is a great cricketer, but how he treats his wife, what kind of family man he is, his fans don’t know. In the west, it is very different, look at Roger Federer, who after winning the Wimbledon title, said he was happy that his wife and twin daughters were watching him play. Such a thing from a well known Person goes a long way. The biggest responsibility however lies with the Parents and Society. The grooming of young men to have a feeling of entitlement by Indian parents breeds a sense of masculinity and male privilege.
Son Preference, simultaneously erodes the Possibility of respect for women, as girls are seen as unwanted or burdensome. It demands greater responsibility on the part of parents as well as society not to raise sons in a way in which they are indoctrinated with a sense of superiority and privilege. It is time for us to recognise how we as a society are implicated in producing the very individuals who are perpetrating such heinous crimes against Women and to start taking responsibilities for bringing it to an end. Youths too have a larger role to play for combating sex crimes and Harassment of women.
Instead of being a mute spectator , youths should take responsibility and see to it that there’s never a girl/women being harassed either in public transports or at market and streets. And Young ladies must report every crime committed against them and empower every other women in their circle about their Women Rights. [/tabcontent] Any meaningful attempt to protect women against Rape must engage with Gendered notions of Power entrenched in our families, our marriages, our workplaces, our educational Instituitions, our religions, our laws, our political parties and perhaps, worst of all, in our minds.
There is a need to awaken Public consciousness, to make people realise that rape and sexual assault are not merely woman’s issues. It is important we raise our collective voice for women, but let’s raise it for all women, let’s raise it so that no woman, no matter that she be poor, rich, urban, rural, Dalit, Muslim, Hindu or whatever, ever in the future, has to face sexual violence, and no man assumes, that because of the system and people’s mind sets he can simply get away with it.
