While the enlightened era of the twenty first century wakes up to the magic of science and technology, the Indian woman wakes up with the fear of facing the day to come and surviving the ordeal that she is subject to on every day of her life. She can be burnt alive for not bringing enough dowry, tortured and harassed for not giving money to her drunken husband, raped to satisfy the male lust or just to teach her a lesson for being bold. This is the pathetic state of the Indian woman. What comes as a surprise is not so much the condition of women due to the apathy of the state but their condition in spite of the recognition by the state of the basic human rights that they are entitled to enjoy.
The penal laws in India are archaic and the problems in the justice system are further augmented by the rigid mindset of the judges. For instance, the rape laws in India only recognize peno-vaginal intercourse as amounting to rape and nothing short of it, thereby excluding an entire gamut of offences that may be perpetrated on the woman without any effective remedy. One of the most widely perpetrated crimes in India is that of dowry death wherein despite the existence of the Dowry Prohibition Act, the crime has not been effectively curbed thereby sacrificing the lives of thousands of innocent brides for greed. The crime is a blatant violation of the right to life of the woman despite which there is little that the law enforcement agencies have done. In a number of instances, the dying declaration of the woman has been disregarded and the perpetrators have consequently been let off the hook. In most such instances, if the woman is not killed for dowry, then she is subject to constant battering and domestic violence simply to attune her to the gender hierarchy in the domestic sphere.
One of the most controversial ‘crimes’ perpetrated by and not against women as per the common understanding of the ‘crime’ is prostitution. Although the IPC does not make prostitution illegal, it criminalizes all acts associated with it such as soliciting while the irony lies in the fact that most of these women are ‘protected’ and patronized by the policemen (i.e the law enforcement agency) themselves. Even if a woman manages to escape all of the above and try to eke out a living for herself, she is subject to sexual harassment at the workplace irrespective of her position in the official hierarchy. It is a documented fact that despite the existence of Convention for Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and its ratification by India, over 50% of the women face sexual harassment at their workplace.
Thus, there is an urgent need to review some of the existing laws at the international as well as national levels to ensure their effective applications to curb the existing malaise of growing human rights abuses being perpetrated against women. Human rights are essential rights which every human being must have against the state or any other public authority by virtue of his/her being a human being, irrespective of other considerations. They are based on mankind’s demand for a life in which the inherent dignity of a human being will receive respect and protection. In the eyes of law, equality of women is inherent and not something that has yet to be gained.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) makes an explicit reference to equality of women in not only its preamble but also in several of its articles. The applicability of human rights machinery to the abuse of women was first addressed internationally at the United Nations (UN) Mid-Decade Conference on Women held in Copenhagen in 1980 that stated that not only should women be given equal rights as that of men but also they should be able to enjoy all those formal rights which requires that obstacles other than the legal ones be identified and eliminated. The international community has manifested its concern for the human rights of women in a number of other meetings including the Seventh Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders in Milan in 1985 which through its resolution asked for the fair treatment of women by the criminal justice system. In November 1985, the General Assembly of the UN adopted a resolution which called for strong multidisciplinary measures to deal with the problems as well as the reform of the justice system to eliminate bias. At the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, the Government of India made a commitment to formulate and operationalize a national policy on women and set up a commission for women’s rights to act as a public defender of women’s human rights.
However, the international instrument considered most central to the concerns of women is the CEDAW ratified by the UN on 18th December 1979. 166 countries, including India are members of the CEDAW. This Convention recognizes the economically unrecognized roles of the woman at home which affects their economic growth and prosperity. It stresses on the role of education which will help the women achieve an equality of status as that of men. It recognizes the need for not only legal but also actual equality between men and women. The Indian government ratified it in 1993 reiterating that discrimination against women violates the principle of equality of rights and respect for human dignity of equality.
Apart from ratifying some of these Conventions, India has also enacted several domestic legislations to deal with the human rights of women other than the provisions in Part III and Part IV of the Constitution. The Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women and Girls Act, the Hindu Marriage Act, the Hindu Succession Act, the Dowry Prohibition Act, the Sati Act, the Equal Remuneration Act, Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act and the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act are some of the laws that were enacted for this purpose.
Thus it is amply clear that both at the national as well as the international levels, the basic human rights of women have been recognized and protected. Therefore, the lapse lies in the effective interpretation and enforcement of these laws which is one of the main hurdles to be overcome to make dignified living a reality for women the world over.
Sneha J, member, SACJ, 2007-2008
