Rape Roots
Author: Esha Yadav (Law College Dehradun)
A report compiled from government sources by UN showed that annually more 250,00 cases of rape or attempted to rape recorded by police and this reported data covered 65 countries .A survey was done by UN for 100 women who suffered sexual violence in their life in which 2.3 % had experienced rape 14% had experienced attempted to rape .
These all amount to those that are seen and recorded but what about those troubles that every girl go through from her childhood and it always remain unnoticed. This piece of writing is all about what are the complications faced by women and if these are not halted then in the coming era then what will be consequences and what actions a women can take regarding this mess.
The first and foremost thing is each girl faces is stalking –An unwanted or repeated surveillance by an individual or group of individuals towards a person is called stalking and it is also related to harassment and intimidation and includes following the victim or monitoring them .
What is law on stalking?
Section 354D IPC: Stalking, Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013.
A) Any man who—
- follows a woman and contacts, or attempts to contact such woman to foster personal interaction repeatedly despite a clear indication of disinterest by such woman; or
- monitors the use by a woman of the internet, email or any other form of electronic communication, commits the offence of stalking;
- Provided that such conduct shall not amount to stalking if the man who pursued it proves that—
- it was pursued for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime and the man accused of stalking had been entrusted with the responsibility of prevention and detection of crime by the State; or
- it was pursued under any law or to comply with any condition or requirement imposed by any person under any law; or
- in the particular circumstances such conduct was reasonable and justified.
- Whoever commits the offence of stalking shall be punished on first conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, and shall also be susceptible to fine; and be punished on a second or subsequent conviction, with imprisonment of either description for a term which can reach to five years, and shall also be liable to fine.
Stalking is bailable for the first time and is non Bailable for second time and non bailable doesn’t mean that there is no bail, it only means it’s not by right but by the discretion of court.
In section 375 of IPC, the definition of rape includes all the forms of sexual assault involving consensual intercourse with a woman.
However, exception 2 of section 375 exempts from definition of rape when there is unwilling sexual activity between husband and wife over fifteen years of age and so immunizes such acts from prosecution. According to law, a wife is presumed to deliver perpetual consent of having sex with her husband after getting into a marital relationship. Sexual contact between husband and wife without consent is considered as criminal offence in every country, but India is a thirty sixth country which still have not criminalized marital rapes.
The Supreme Court of India and various High Courts are dealing with writ petitions challenging the constitutionality of this exception, and a recent landmark judgment, in which the Supreme Court has criminalized unwilling sexual contact with a wife between fifteen and eighteen years of age .This judgment has in successively led to an increase in other writs also challenging the constitutionality of Exception 2 as an entire. In light of ongoing case this piece of writing critically analyses the constitutionality of Exception 2.
Under section 7 of the POCSO Act,
Sexual assault is defined as an acts of touching the private parts of a child or making him touch the private parts of the accused or any other person with the intention of sex that involves physical contact without penetration. For Interpreting as what constitutes a sexual abuse with a minor under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court ruled that there must be a “skin-to-skin contact” with intention of sex, and mere groping isn’t sufficient Then, A Single-judge bench of Justice Pushpa was hearing an appeal against the conviction, a case where the accused had allegedly taken a minor girl to his house under the garb of offering her a guava and pressed her breasts and partially stripped her
When the girl disclosed the incident to her mother, a first information report (FIR) was lodged against the accused. According to bar and bench, the accused was convicted by the trial court under POCSO Act and the IPC. He then approached the high court challenging the conviction.
Well these are few ones that I have highlighted but there are numerous problems.
Consequences
Some incidents like where women usually feel unsafe in metros buses, the place where they work this leads to the fear in mind with the mental illness of women and the key point is they are not get noticed specially in our Indian society people consider these issues as minor ones and then these issues reaches to its higher level and leads to rape because culprits gets encouraged by doing these attempts.
Measures to be taken
Well to stop these, we are already having effective laws but the problem is in the implementation part and execution parts, when any case related to molestation and other issues they take it so lightly and even don’t take strict actions. Women needs to be more aware and attentive regarding the laws and their rights. According to my point of view every women should learn the self-defence and the executive officers should remain more alert in order to prevent these issues.
Conclusion
So it can be concluded that each one of us have responsibility on our shoulders to protect and save a women or man from hilarious crimes and specially to stop these minor issues so later it may not leads to the major ones like rape and people needs a good mind-set because this society teaches us don’t get raped instead of don’t rape.
