As the sexual violence and rape cases increase in India, and we all are busy looking into what can be done after the harm is caused. We are occupied with candlelight marches, protests and whatnot; but have we ever given a thought as to what are the real reasons behind such behaviour from people? How can we decrease this? No, we are in thirst for one another blood, we want to kill, hang, shoot. I’m not saying we shouldn’t punish the culprits or I’m with the culprits or sexual violence is correct. However, if we don’t act upon from the root, then there will never be an end to this.
So today, let’s see some of the causes of the increase in sexual violence in India.
1. Few female police
As per the studies, it was shown that women are more likely to report sex crimes if a female police officer is available. When compared to other Asian countries, India has historically had a considerably lower percentage of female police officers. In India, only 7.28 per cent of police officers are women; out of which 90 per cent are constables, while less than 1 per cent hold supervisory positions. If we take the capital city, out of 178 police station and 15 police district, only 60 women public facilitation officers in 20 police stations are available with facilitation desk.
Women are reluctant to report a rape case to male officers as they find it hard to answer the questions from them.
2. Not Enough Police
There aren’t enough police committed to protecting ordinary citizens, rather than elites. India has only 125 police officers for every 100,000 population. The available officers often lack basic evidence-gathering and investigative training and equipment, which further makes delay in cases. As someone rightly said, “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
3. Blaming alluring clothing
The blame game is always a part of such violence, judgemental people go for the girl’s clothes rather than what a boy did with her — the tendency of the society to assume that victims of sexual violence somehow brought it on themselves is quite prevalent in India. In a survey of judges conducted in 1996 in India, 68 per cent of the respondents said that alluring clothing is an invitation to rape. Let me remind you, clothes are what a person picks based on his/her comfort, it is not to lure anyone.
4. A sluggish court system
It is a sad truth that India’s court system is torturously slow, in part because of a lack of judges. The country has about 19 judges for every 10 lakh people. As per the data released by Law Ministry (2018), judiciary faces a combined shortage of over 6,000 judges, including over 5,000 in the lower courts itself. This shortage has caused a delay in taking up cases and making the whole system slow.
5. Fewer convictions
For rapes that do get reported, India’s conviction rate is no more than 27.1 per cent (2013) which was 44.3 per cent in 1973. There is also no law on the books covering routine daily sexual harassment, which is termed as “eve-teasing.” The last amendment was done on 3rd April 2013, The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 (Nirbhaya Act), which mainly looked into the amendment of Indian Penal Code, Indian Evidence Act, and Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 on laws related to sexual offences.
These are some of the reasons which we need to work upon to decrease sexual harassment in India.
