On India’s 75th Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed on the need to support ‘nari shakti’ (women power) and called for a ‘change in the mentality’ towards women.
Later that day, 11 men serving a life term after being convicted of gangraping and murdering 14 people in the 2002 Gujarat riots walked out of Godhra jail and went home.
They were felicitated with sweets and garlanded. BJP legislator C.K. Raulji, one of the members of the panel that had unanimously ruled for the early release of the men, told Mojo Story the men are Brahmins and Brahmins have good sanskar (values).
The Gujarat state’s remission policy allows for the early release of prisoners who have completed at least 14 years of a life term; these men had served 15. But those convicted of heinous crimes, including gangrape, are ineligible. Those found guilty of crimes investigated by the CBI are also ineligible – unless the state government has the express permission of the central government to do so.
Bilkis Bano, who was five months pregnant when the men killed her three-year-old daughter and then took turns to rape her, her mother and other relatives, leaving them for dead, said she was unaware that any of the men had applied for remission. “How can justice for any women end like this?” she said in a statement released through her attorney Shobha Gupta. “The release of these convicts has taken me from my peace and shaken my faith in justice.”
Justice for rape should not be so hard to find
In 2019, a Delhi court sentenced former BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Senger to spend the rest of his life in jail for kidnapping and raping a minor girl in 2017. But a local court in Unnao issued a non-bailable warrant on the survivor for alleged cheating and forgery filed by the father of Shubham Singh, one of the accused being tried in the rape case.
Calling the complaint a ‘counter judicial proceeding’, the Unnao rape survivor filed an application in the Supreme Court to have the case transferred to a Delhi court. The apex court has agreed to hear the case next week.
In Hathras, the family of a Dalit girl who was gangraped and murdered in September 2020, her body forcibly cremated in the middle of the night by the police, is still waiting for the Uttar Pradesh government to fulfil its promise of a house and a job so that they can be relocated and pick up the pieces of their lives.
The family of a nine-year-old Dalit girl raped and killed at an electric crematorium in Delhi’s cantonment area waits for justice one year later; their lives upended, unable to continue working as daily wage labourers because of the police security that accompanies them everywhere.
In the aftermath of the Muzaffarnagar riots in 2013, of the seven women who eventually filed complaints of rape, only one woman continues to fight for justice; one died of natural causes and five others eventually withdrew their statement in 2018. “They still have to live there amongst the accused who wield political clout,” explained human rights lawyer Shubhangi Singh who worked with the survivors.
Bilkis Bano spent 17 years fighting for the conviction of the 11 men, changing homes 20 times in the course of these years. Local police officers initially refused to file her complaint. It was only after the National Human Rights Commission intervened and the Supreme Court ordered the CBI to investigate, that the men were arrested in January 2004, nearly two years after the crime.
In August of 2004, the Supreme Court ordered the case to be transferred out of Gujarat to Mumbai. In January 2008, the Mumbai trial court found the men were guilty and sentenced them to life imprisonment; the CBI wanted the death sentence. The men went into appeal and in May 2017, the Bombay High Court upheld the sentence.
Then, unknown to Bilkis Bano, after spending 15 years in jail, one of the men filed for remission, or early release, in May 2022. Three months, all 11 were set free.
“Bilkis is someone who believed in the system. She thanked the Supreme Court when it granted her compensation. I have no words to imagine what she is going through,” said senior advocate and criminal lawyer Rebecca John. “What does it say of us as a democratic republic that celebrates the men who gangrape, murder and kill a baby? What is left to say?
India’s rape crisis
Data released by the National Crime Records Bureau found an average of 77 rapes reported a day in 2020—a year when the nation was under a strict lock-down. For 2019, there were 88 rapes reported every day.
Conviction rates for rape were as low as 27.8% for 2020. To put it another way, out of every 100 rapes reported, 72 accused get away.
It’s not conviction rates alone. “We do not have an ecosystem conducive to any victim, let alone rape victims,” said attorney Aparna Bhatt who set up Delhi’s rape crisis cell in 2005. “Just going to the police station is a challenge. Nobody wants to believe women. There is no support system for vulnerable classes. Complainants and witnesses are threatened by the perpetrators. Even going to court for hearings is a challenge.”
A woman who has suffered sexual violence cannot be treated like a victim of theft, Bhatt continued. She needs medical and social support, psychological counselling, and assistance to relocate and find a job.
It can take as many as 100 days to file a first information report (FIR) in police stations in UP, found a study, Barriers in Accessing Justice by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and Association for Advocacy and Legal initiatives. “Even when cases get filed, the happen only with the help of a paralegal or a lawyer,” said Shubhangi Singh who wrote the report.
Very often the hostility comes from the judiciary. This week, a judge in Kozhikode, Kerala dismissed two separate cases of sexual harassment brought against the writer, Civic Chandran. In the first, the judge ruled out sexual harassment saying the woman had worn ‘sexually provocative clothes’, in the second he said Chandran is a reformist who has fought the caste system and, so, could not have possibly touched the second woman complainant who is Dalit.
Why stricter laws fail as a deterrent
Recommendations by the Justice J.S. Verma Commission, set up to examine the law following the 2012 gangrape and subsequent death of a physiotherapy student in Delhi, did not include the death sentence for rape.
The Congress-led UPA government went ahead and introduced it any way.
Ever since, Parliament has kept expanding the scope of the death sentence: In 2018, for the rape of all girls below the age of 12; the Shakti Act in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra for ‘heinous’ rape and gang-rape cases; in 2019, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences tweaked to punish ‘aggravated sexual assault’ with a minimum of 20 years and a maximum of the death penalty.
Ironically, stricter sentencing often results in a reluctance by judges to pronounce guilty sentences. If you know you’re going to put away a man for life, or sentence him to the gallows, you are going to want to be sure of the evidence. If the witness is less than perfect, if the evidence gathering is even slightly dodgy, you might be inclined to give the accused the benefit of the doubt.
“Stricter punishments do not serve the cause of women,” said John. “More and more women are being disbelieved and more and more men are being acquitted. I think it’s time to tone it down.”
Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot waded into emotive territory with his recent comments on how the expansion of death sentences for rape offences has led to more women and girls being killed.
The Congress chief minister of Rajasthan which recorded 5,310 rape cases, the most for any state in 2020, presented no data linking the death sentence with murder. But his concern reflects an argument often used by activists: If death is the outcome of rape convictions wouldn’t rapists opt to murder their victims rather than leave them alive to testify against them?
“Changing the law is easy. But the death sentence is not a deterrent. What is, is an effective system of trials and convictions where perpetrators know that they will be caught and punished,” said Bhatt.
In any case, the death sentence is rarely used, for any crime. The last execution took place in March 2020 with the hanging of four men convicted in the 2012 Delhi gangrape case.
IN NUMBERS
Globally, 150 million more women than men went hungry in 2021, a year in which 828 million people were affected by hunger. The gap between men and women has widened significantly, found a new paper, up from 18 million in 2018.
CARE: Food Security and Gender Equality
FIELD NOTES : What women think of AI
In a world where women make up only 26% of data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) positions, women in the United States are less likely than men to say that technology has had a positive effect on society, finds a Pew Research report published earlier this month.
Women are also less likely than men to feel excited about the increasing use of AI computer programmes in daily life. For instance, 43% of women among the 10,260 people surveyed said they would be very, or somewhat, concerned if AI programmes could diagnose medical problems. Amongst men, only 27%.
Women were also more sceptical about driverless passenger vehicles: Only 17% said they are good for society, compared to 37% of men who believe they are. In fact, three of four, 72% of women, were clear that they would not want to sit in such a vehicle.
Read the paper here.
STORIES YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED
A Dalit boy’s thirst led to his death
In Rajasthan’s Surana village, a nine-year-old Dalit boy was alleged thrashed by his teacher after he drank water from a pot reserved for dominant castes in a private school. The teacher, Chail Singh, 40, allegedly beat the boy so severely that he died of his wounds in an Ahmedabad hospital, 23 days later.
The teacher has been arrested and an inquiry into the incident has been ordered by the Congress-led government of Ashok Gehlot.
In limbo in Tashkent
The ban on India by football’s apex body, FIFA for ‘flagrant violations’ has meant that India will not be able to host the women’s U-17 World Cup. It has also left Gokulam Kerala FC, the first Indian women’s team to qualify for an AFC club championship, hanging in Tashkent, unsure of whether they will be allowed to play. “Full punch we are going ahead,” head coach Priya PV told Dhiman Sarkar. The team’s first match is scheduled for August 23 against Iran.
NEVER TOO LATE
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (aka Oscars) has apologised to actor and activist Sacheen Littlefeather for the abuse she endured after refusing Marlon Brando’s 1973 Oscar on his behalf.
Brando was to have received the best actor award for The Godfather but could not attend and so asked Littlefeather to publicly turn down the award on his behalf in protest against the depiction of Native Americans in Hollywood films. But as Littlefeather, the first Native American to step onto the Academy Awards stage, began to speak, she was booed and heckled. Actor John Wayne had to be physically restrained from storming the stage to attack her, reports HuffPost. And, of course, that was the end of her career.
Now 75, she will hosted for an evening of ‘conversation, healing and celebration’ in September “I never thought I’d live to see this day,” she said.
AROUND THE WORLD
In Saudi Arabia, a student of Leeds University, UK who was home for the holidays has been sentenced to 34 years in prison for following and retweeting dissidents and activists on twitter, reports The Guardian.
In Italy, Giorgia Meloni is riding a wave of popularity with a message that blends Christianity, motherhood and patriotism that could next month see her become Italy’s first women prime minister and its first far-right leader since World War II. Associated Press has the story.
In Silicon Valley, Apple has updated its general employee conduct policy to explicitly ban discrimination on the basis of caste to its already existing categories of race, religion, gender, age and ancestry, reports Reuters.
Scotland, reports BBC, has become the first country in the world to ensure universal access to free period products following the passing of landmark legislation in 2020.
That’s it for this week. If you have a tip or information on gender-related developments that you would like to share write to me at: namita.bhandare@gmail.com.
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| That’s it for this week. If you have a tip or information on gender-related developments that you would like to share write to me at: namita.bhandare@gmail.com. |