Crime against women in india

I hereby declare that the project work entitled “CRIME AGAINST WOMEN IN INDIA” submitted to the UNIVERSITY OF MUMBAI, is a record of an original work done by me/us under the guidance of RANI D’SOUZA MAM, Faculty Member, S.M.SHETTY COLLEGE OF SCIENCE, COMMERCE AND MANAGEMENT STUDIES, and this project work is my/our original work based on our research and has not been used previously for any similar project.
Name and roll no. of the group members * 33 - ashok pai * 67- sahil wani * 47 - dipika shetty * 53 - sushmia shetty

We owe a great many thanks to a great many people who helped and supported us during the research of this project.

My deepest thanks to Lecturer, Rani D’souza the Guide of the project for guiding and correcting various documents of mine with attention and care. He has taken pain to go through the project and make necessary correction as and when needed.

I express my thanks to the Principal of, [UNIVERSITY NAME & PLACE], for extending his support.

I would also thank my Institution and my faculty members without whom this project would have been a distant reality. I also extend my heartfelt thanks to my family and well wishers.

contents * Introduction * Sexual harassment * Dowry * Child marriage * Female infanticides and sex selective abortions * Guwahati molestation just the tip of the iceberg,crime against women up in India * Causes of crime * Effects of crime * Statistics Could be highly Misleading * New Statistics Show Crime Against Women Is On The Rise In India * Women’s Movement in India

introduction
The status of women in India has been subject to many great changes over the past few millennia.[From equal status with men in ancient times through the low points of the medieval period, to the promotion of equal rights by many reformers, the history of women in India has been eventful. In modern India, women have adorned high offices in India including that of the President, Prime minister, Speaker of the Lok Sabha and Leader of the Opposition. As of 2011, the President of India, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha and the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha (Lower House of the parliament) are all women. However, women in India generally are still exposed to numerous social issues. According to a global study conducted by Thomson Reuters, India is the "fourth most dangerous country" in the world for women
Police records show high incidence of crimes against women in India. The National Crime Records Bureau reported in 1998 that the growth rate of crimes against women would be higher than the population growth rate by 2010. Earlier, many cases were not registered with the police due to the social stigma attached to rape and molestation cases. Official statistics show that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of reported crimes against women.

Sexual harassment
Half of the total number of crimes against women reported in 1990 related to molestation and harassment at the workplace. Eve teasing is a euphemism used for sexual harassment or molestation of women by men. Many activists blame the rising incidents of sexual harassment against women on the influence of "Western culture". In 1987, The Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act was passed to prohibit indecent representation of women through advertisements or in publications, writings, paintings, figures or in any other manner.
In 1997, in a landmark judgement, the Supreme Court of India took a strong stand against sexual harassment of women in the workplace. The Court also laid down detailed guidelines for prevention and redressal of grievances. The National Commission for Women subsequently elaborated these guidelines into a Code of Conduct for employers.

DOWRY

In 1961, the Government of India passed the Dowry Prohibition Act,[51] making the dowry demands in wedding arrangements illegal. However, many cases of dowry-related domestic crime, suicides and murders have been reported. In the 1980s, numerous such cases were reported.
In 1985, the Dowry Prohibition (maintenance of lists of presents to the bride and bridegroom) rules were framed. According to these rules, a signed list of presents given at the time of the marriage to the bride and the bridegroom should be maintained. The list should contain a brief description of each present, its approximate value, the name of whoever has given the present and his/her relationship to the person. However, such rules are hardly enforced.
A 1997 report claimed that at least 5,000 women die each year because of dowry deaths, and at least a dozen die each day in 'kitchen fires' thought to be intentional. The term for this is "bride burning" and is criticized within India itself. Amongst the urban educated, such dowry abuse has reduced considerably.

Child marriage
Child marriage has been traditionally prevalent in India and continues to this day. Historically, young girls would live with their parents until they reached puberty. In the past, the child widows were condemned to a life of great agony, shaving heads, living in isolation, and shunned by the society. Although child marriage was outlawed in 1860, it is still a common practice.
According to UNICEF’s “State of the World’s Children-2009” report, 47% of India's women aged 20–24 were married before the legal age of 18, with 56% in rural areas. The report also showed that 40% of the world's child marriages occur in India.

Female infanticides and sex selective
Abortions

India has a highly masculine sex ratio, the chief reason being that many women die before reaching adulthood. Tribal societies in India have a less masculine sex ratio than all other caste groups. This, in spite of the fact that tribal communities have far lower levels of income, literacy and health facilities. It is therefore suggested by many experts, that the highly masculine sex ratio in India can be attributed to female infanticides and sex-selective abortions.
Ultrasound scans have been a major leap forward in the care of mother and baby, and with them becoming portable, these advantages have spread to rural populations. However, ultrasound scans can often reveal the sex of the baby, allowing pregnant women to decide to abort female foetuses and try again for a male child. This practice is usually considered to be the main reason for the change in the ratio of male to female children being born. In 1994 the Indian government passed a law forbidding women or their families from asking about the sex of the baby after an ultrasound scan (or any other test which would yield that information) and also expressly forbade doctors or any other staff from giving that information. However, in practice this law (like the one forbidding dowries) is widely ignored, and levels of the abortion on female foetuses remain high and the sex ratio at birth keeps getting worse.

Female infanticide (killing of girl infants) is still prevalent in some rural areas. Sometimes this is infanticide by neglect, for example families may not spend money on critical medicines or even just by withholding care from a sick girl.
The abuse of the dowry tradition has been one of the main reasons for sex-selective abortions and female infanticides in India.

• Andhra Pradesh reported 13.3% of total such cases in the country (24,738 out of
1,85,312). Tripura reported the highest crime rate (30.7) closely followed by
Andhra Pradesh (30.3) as compared to the National average rate of 16.3.
• The proportion of IPC crimes committed against women towards total IPC crimes has increased during last 5 years from 7.6% in 2003 to 8.8% during 2007.
• Madhya Pradesh has reported the highest number of Rape cases (3,010) accounting for 14.5% of total such cases reported in the country.
• Andhra Pradesh has reported 30.3% (3,316) of Sexual Harassment cases followed by Uttar Pradesh 26.3% (2,882).
• Only Bihar (56) and West Bengal (5) have reported cases of Importation of Girls.
• Tamil Nadu reported 33.6% of cases under Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act
(1,199 out of 3,568).
• Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act cases decreased by 23.2%
(from 1,562 in 2006 to 1,200 in 2007).
• Andhra Pradesh with 1,005 cases has accounted for 83.8% of cases under
Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act at the National level.
• No case under Sati Prevention Act was reported across the country during the year 2007.
• Incest Rape cases decreased by 6.0% in 2007 over 2006 (from 431 in 2006 to
405 in 2007).
• West Bengal reported 28.1% of total Incest Rape cases (114 out of 405).
• Offenders were known to the victims in 92.5% of Rape cases (19,188 out of
20,737).
• Among 35 mega cities, Delhi city reported 29.5% (524 out of 1,775) of total Rape cases, 31.8% cases (1,021 out of 3,207) of Kidnapping & Abduction of Women,
15.6% cases (111 out of 711) of Dowry Deaths, 14.2% cases (1,711 out of
12,031) of Cruelty by Husband and Relatives and 21.5% cases (744 out of 3,463) of Molestation.
• 49.9% conviction was reported in the country in Sexual Harassment cases
(3,708 convictions out of 7,436 cases in which trial were completed).

Guwahati molestation just the tip of the iceberg, crime against women up in India

New Delhi : As the nation tries to come to terms with the shocking molestation of a minor girl in Guwahati who was also beaten by her molesters, national crime statistics show a rise in incidences of crime against women. According to the Union ministry of home affairs' compendium on crime statistics, compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the incidence of crime against women in India has shot up both numerically and as a proportion of total number of Indian Penal Code (IPC) crimes.

Causes of Crime

Lack of education and awareness are the most common reasons for crime against women. Children who are subjected to abuse are likely to behave similarly as adults. Socio-economic status, substance and alcohol abuse also leads to crime against women in India. Sometimes children who witness one parent abusing the other tend to abuse later in life.
Trafficking is rampant among women from lower economic backgrounds who are forced into prostitution to make a living. An article in the Indian Express says “Around 100 million people mostly women and girls are involved in trafficking in one way or another, according to former Indian Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta”. The same article states that 44.5% of girls are married off before the age of 18.

Effects of crime
Physical effects – injury, loss of speech, aches and pain, burns , substance abuse, gynaecological issues, sexually transmitted diseases, unintended pregnancy resulting in abortion, and the list just goes on. Mental and emotional health problems – withdrawal, unsocial behavior, multiple sexual partners, insomnia, depression and several others can also result.
Apart from this, when the knowledge of abuse reaches others in the community, abused women are often shunned and forced to live in isolation. In many cases, women suffer silently for this very reason. They tolerate crime simply because of the fear of the consequences if they reported it and left. They don’t realize the consequences of putting up with it and carry on like that.

How Can We End Crime Against
Women?

Education of the girl child is the first step towards a better society with fewer incidents of crime. Campaigns aimed at men and boys to increase awareness and change attitudes about gender inequality are also effective tools. As individuals and responsible citizens, we need to spread awareness and report any act of crime against women around us.

Statistics Could be highly Misleading

The fact that the statistics of crime against women rose in 2011 needn’t simply point to the notion that crimes against women rose but could indicate that more women have now started coming forward to register complaints or suggest the Mumbai police have now begun to take women’s complaints more seriously. There was also a corresponding slump in the number of complaints on special helplines for women in distress indicating more cases were being registered in person than on phone. It, however, is no achievement on part of Mumbai police.

The city police had faced a lot of flak for being reluctant to file an FIR lodged by a Charkop teenaged girl who had been abducted and raped by two men she had earlier complained about. She was rescued by the crime branch after being allegedly abducted and raped for 34 days. After pressure from the media and public, the police instituted an inquiry. Within a period of 180 days, the city saw 89 cases of rape and molestation registered with the police between November 2010 and April 2011. There are four rape and molestation cases registered every day in Maharashtra indicative of an even scarier prospect of a higher number of rapes and molestations in reality that go unregistered.

At 166, Mumbai has the highest number of cases registered among the nine cities in the state in the past one year (May 2010 to April 2011). There were 755 cases registered across the state from November 2010 to April 2011, a rise from the 739 cases registered in the previous six months.

The figures could well be just the tip of the iceberg. Few cases of rape get reported forget getting registered. Lesser manage to reach the conviction stage. The police need to start registering cases as they arrive instead of attempting to brush matters off as civil or non-cognisable instead.

Some of the crimes occurred * A 22-year-old woman was abducted by three Chunabhatti residents and raped in a moving auto rickshaw for two hours in September 2011. The woman was abducted near Rashtriya Chemical and Fertilizers (RCF) company in Chembur and dumped in the night at a spot four km away in Chunabhatti, where policemen from a beat chowkie found her.

* Towards the end of last year, while travelling alone in auto rickshaw back to her Mulund residence from Dahisar at around 1 am, two auto drivers abducted and allegedly raped 18-year-old Dutch national brutally in the forests near Aarey Milk Colony. While one of the accused in the case has been nabbed, another still lurks free. A Goregaon resident heard her cries and went to save her.

* In September last, three-year-old minor girl was allegedly kidnapped, raped and murdered by a teenager at suburban Goregoan in Mumbai, according to the police. The victim, along with her five-year-old sister, was watching the Ganesh immersion festivities from near her building on a Sunday when the accused Babloo Gupta (18), abducted the girl and took her to a nearby secluded spot where he raped her.

New Statistics Show Crime Against Women Is On The Rise In India

In the past few months, New Delhi, India, has been dubbed the "rape capital" of South Asia. "The latest statistics are terrifying. And it clearly points to male rage," Shobhaa Dé, a novelist and popular social commentator, tells theWashington Post. "Underneath our incredible social change, the Indian male is experiencing nothing short of a psychological frenzy." The Post's Emily Wax speaks with 17-year-old Gitanjali Chaudhry (pictured), who walks to high school with a bag of chili powder and a pouch of safety pins in order to defend herself against the men who follow her to class. "We learned that women have to be brave," Chaudhry says. "We thought opportunities were getting better for young Indian women. But the harassment only seems to be getting worse." The harassment — when men make lewd comments or paw women's bodies — has a name in India: "Eve teasing.
Crime against women is the fastest-growing crime in India, a recent study concluded. Every 26 minutes a woman is molested, every 34 minutes a rape takes place, and every 43 minutes a woman is kidnapped, according to the Home Ministry's National Crime Records Bureau.
Women's groups claim only a small percentage of rapes are reported. Interestingly enough, as India celebrates 60 years of independence, Time magazine takes a look at some of the people who are leading the country into its next six decades. And naturally, some of them are women Mayawati, the politician from the "untouchable" caste; Sunita Narain, an environmentalist Sonia Gandhi, a popular, Italian-born Catholic who married into a famous family; andAishwarya Rai, the biggest Bollywood star. Do successful women in the public eye make it easier or harder for "ordinary" women like Gitanjali Chaudhry (who wants to finish school and be a lawyer, but sometimes stays home when the harassment gets too bad) to find success? Will the male backlash create an atmosphere in which women just give up? And how many males in India are like 21-year-old Raja Kumar, who says, in the Post: "I was never really taught how to act around a girl. I thought teasing was the way to get them to notice me." In India, New Opportunities for Women Draw Anger and Abuse From Men

Women’s Movement in India

* Growth in autonomous women’s organisations over the past three decades * Increased awareness of women’s rights * Demand for special cells of women police officers for investigation * Change in women’s status: stronger “political” voice; visibility in the economy (including in non-traditional professions); more number of girls in education * Campaigns about Crime against women (from the individual to the community level) * JAGORI as an example