Domestic Violence In India

Violence against women (VAW), also known sexual and gender-based violence are violent acts primarily or exclusively committed against women and girls.

The UN Declaration states (a) historically unequal power relations between men and women"
(b) “social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men."

´Women’s Aid defines domestic abuse as an incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive, threatening, degrading and violent behaviour, including sexual violence, in the majority of cases by a partner or ex-partner, but also by a family member or carer.

´It is very common. In the vast majority of cases it is experienced by women and is perpetrated by men.

Thus domestic violence or violence against women done by her closed loved ones take many form: Physical abuse, economic abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse.

It was two months into their marriage when the abuse began.Ragini was heard saying to a news reporter. Mohan, slapped his wife Ragini, for giving a lower dowry than expected by her parents-in-law. “When Ragini, tried to tell her mother-in-law about the abuse she dismissed it as normal”. It was when Ragini’s husband beat her up so severely that it left her with wounds on her head that she registered a complaint with the Delhi police under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, passed in 2005.

In India, where women are mostly treated as liabilities and identified socially only as someone’s

Daughter

Wife

Mother

Sister

It is hard to feel that they do have an identity of their own. So they define and locate themselves as someone’s something as it’s easier to be than nothing.

But the heartbreaking tragedy of these Indian women is not just in their loss of identity, but the abuse in the hands of those who define their identity.

Domestic violence is largely thought as the physical abuse by husband on their wife, but domestic violence encompasses a large variety of other forms of violence on various members of the house outside marital relations.

Domestic violence or wife beating in most cases is one of the worst kept secret of the ‘fastest economically developing’ country India. About every five minutes a report of domestic violence occurs, and we all have noted countless cases of domestic violence either from newspaper or from someone we know.It is duty of the wife keep him happy, her feelings or opinion do not matter- what is handling a few slaps to the face to keep the happiness of her new house.

This is why the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 comes to us as a relief. Though many actions before has been taken by govt- IPC 498A, Dowry death law etc, this is the first law focusing on the real issue.

But this law has many problems of its own

1.Lack of proper funding

2.Uneven distribution of implementation of policy

3.Lack of proper awareness and education about the policies

4.The judicial system that deals with these cases are skewed. The judgement is unpredictable and not completely logical.

5.There is no provisions for the same sex couples.

6.There is no special provision for the male victims of domestic abuse.

7.It is very hard to prove cases of emotional abuse.

There are million more small legal loopholes in the act. There should be an amendment made to the act itself to fix these problems.

The need of the hour is provide the victims a new beginning, a chance for them believe we are there for them.Therefore the next time you hear a scream from your neighbour, go ring the doorbell to let them know you are there for them.