HDSC Winter ’22 Premiere Project Presentation: Crimes against Women in India
Journey with the apache team through the dreadful acts of violence against women in India.
INTRODUCTION
Violence against women refers to physical or sexual violence committed against a woman, typically by a man. Common forms of violence against women in India include acts such as domestic abuse, sexual assault, and murder. In order to be considered violence against women, the act must be committed solely because the victim is female. Most typically, these acts are committed by men as a result of the long-standing gender inequalities present in the country.
Violence against women in India is actually more present than it may appear at first glance, as many expressions of violence are not considered crimes, or may otherwise go unreported or undocumented due to certain Indian cultural values and beliefs.
The term violence against women encompasses a multitude of abuses directed at women and girls over the life span.
This article will concentrate on various forms of violence that strike women, showing also how the types of violence increased overtime in India.
DIFFERENT FORMS OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN INDIA
Violent acts, irrespective of whether they are self-directed, interpersonal, or collective are commonly categorized as physical, sexual, or psychological. Deprivation and neglect can be considered as forms of psychological abuse. However, these different forms often interact with each other, and form a complex pattern of behaviour where psychological violence is combined with physical and/or sexual abuse for some settings.
Comparing different forms of violence against women in India with Apache dataset from kaggle (2001–2014)
TYPES OF VIOLENCE;
From our dataset we have data for 7 crimes. Rape, Kidnapping and abduction, dowry deaths, assault on women, insult to modesty, cruelty by husband or relatives, importation of girls. Below we explain the three categories of violence and place each of the crimes above and more into a category. There are also some other crimes that are not in our data set.
- Physical violence is exercised through physically aggressive acts such as kicking, biting, slapping, beating, or even strangling. Intentionally inflicted injuries are often disguised as accidents. At times, women are seriously injured and, in some cases, die as a result of their injuries.
- Psychological, mental, or emotional violence describe acts such as preventing a woman from seeing family and friends, ongoing belittlement or humiliation, economic restrictions, violence or threats against cherished objects and other forms of controlling behaviours.
- Sexual violence includes forced sex through the use of physical force, threats, and intimidation, forced participation in degrading sexual acts as well as acts such as the denial of the right to use contraceptives or to adopt measures to protect against sexually transmitted diseases.
Dowry death — A dowry death is the murder or suicide of a married woman caused by a dispute over her dowry. In some cases, husbands and in-laws will attempt to extort a greater dowry through continuous harassment and torture, which sometimes results in the wife committing suicide, or the exchange of gifts, money, or property upon marriage of a family’s daughter.
The majority of these suicides are committed by hanging, poisoning or self-immolation.
In Uttar Pradesh, 2,244 cases were reported, accounting for 27.3% of the dowry deaths nationwide. In Bihar, 1,275 cases were reported, accounting for 15.5% of cases nationwide. Incidents of dowry deaths have decreased 4.5% from 2011 to 2012. In 2018, still as many as 5,000 dowry deaths are recorded each year.
Comparing number of reported dowry deaths cases by year with Apache dataset.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE (CRUELTY BY HUSBAND AND RELATIVES)
Domestic violence is abuse by one partner against another in an intimate relationship such as dating, marriage, cohabitation, or a familial relationship.
Domestic violence is also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, battering, family violence, dating abuse and intimate partner violence (IPV). Sometimes the relatives of husbands in the case of marriage could also commit some of the acts that harm the woman. Domestic violence can be physical, emotional, verbal, economic, and sexual abuse.
Kidnapping means unlawfully detaining a person or persons against their will (including through the use of force, threat, fraud or enticement) for the purpose of demanding for their liberation an illicit gain or any other economic gain or other material benefit; or in order to oblige someone to do or not to do something.
People are kidnapped for various reasons and intentions, which can include adoption, begging, illicit intercourse, marriage, prostitution, ransom, revenge, sale, selling body parts, slavery, murder and for many other purposes.
A total of 77,237 cases of kidnapping and abduction were reported during the year 2014, showing an increase of 67.9% over the 2004 level (46,003 cases), an increase of 67.9% over the average of 2009–2013 and an increase of 18.0% over the previous year (65,461 cases).
SEXUAL VIOLENCE: ASSAULT ON WOMEN WITH INTENT TO OUTRAGE HER MODESTY.
This refers to assaults or uses of criminal force to any woman, intending to outrage or knowing it to be likely that he will thereby outrage her modesty. For example, the act of pulling a woman, removing her saree, coupled with a request for sexual intercourse would be an outrage to the modesty of a woman.
Outraging modesty in ordinary language “modest” means freedom from conceit or vanity or propriety in dress, speech and conduct. The word “outrage” has affinity with extremely rude, violent, injurious or insulting acts on one hand and it is connected with guilt, culpability, criminality and deviation from rectitude on the part of the person committing assault or using criminal force on a woman.
INSULT TO MODESTY OF WOMEN
To insult the modesty of any woman means to utter any words, make any sound or gesture, or exhibit any object, intending that such word or sound shall be heard, or that such gesture or object shall be seen, by such woman, or intrudes upon the privacy of such woman.
Acts such as inappropriate staring and taking up-skirt photographs that have been mistaken to be an outrage of modesty. This can be reconciled with the understanding that these acts do not involve an assault or use of criminal force, and hence do not satisfy the first element of an outrage of modesty.
RAPE
There are many myths about rape to have sex against one’s will which are based on stereotypes about what is appropriate sexual behaviour for men and women. For example, most people associate rape with a violent attack by a stranger, but rape is most often perpetrated by someone known to the victim. There is also an assumption that rape leaves obvious signs of injury, which is often not the case. Only around one third of rape victims sustain visible physical injuries.
Physical violence or pressure in the form of blackmail or threats might occur simultaneously with the rape, or is the violence carried out while the woman is asleep or under the influence of alcohol or other drugs, unable to defend herself. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, one woman is raped every 20 minutes in India. Incidents of reported rape increased 3% from 2011 to 2012. Incidents of reported incest rape increased 46.8% from 268 cases in 2011 to 392 cases in 2012. However, women are becoming more independent and educated, which is increasing their likelihood to report their rape.
Below, we see the Top 10 states with most number of rapes in 2014 and an increment in rape cases overtime with Apache dataset from kaggle.
HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND FORCED PROSTITUTION (Importation of Girls)
Human trafficking in India, although illegal under Indian law, remains a significant problem. People are frequently illegally trafficked through India for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced/bonded labour. Women and children are trafficked in India for diverse reasons. Women and girls are trafficked within the country for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced marriage, especially in those areas where the sex ratio is highly skewed in favour of men.
Human trafficking in India results in women suffering from both mental and physical issues.
Comparing number of reported human trafficking by year with Apache dataset from kaggle
CONCLUSIONS
There is still limited knowledge about what interventions are most effective for the prevention of gender based violence. However, documentation and evaluation are key elements in building this knowledge, and clear definitions are an important element in this.
Violence against women is a serious violation of women’s human rights and of direct concern to the public health sector because of the significant contributions that public health workers could do if properly trained, as they are placed close to the victims, and possibly well acquainted with the community and its inhabitants.
Thus, local health services and communities could play a central part in raising awareness among the public to prevent this violence. To openly debate this subject is a way to reduce society’s tolerance towards violence against women.