A group of college girls perform a street play on violence against women, to mark International Women’s Day in New Delhi, India, Image: Tsering Topgyal, AP
The winter session of Parliament saw Prataprao Patil Chikhlikar of Nanded Constituency raise questions about cases of domestic violence in India. Chikhilkar specifically asked about cases in the last three years and if there was any increase in the number of cases. However, in her written response, Smriti Irani quoted publicly available data published by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) which only covers information upto 2017. This means she used old and dated information to give an official response to a demand for fresh information.
The data quoted in Irani’s response specifies that the number of domestic violence cases registered under ‘The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005’ is 461 in 2015, 437 in 2016 and 616 in 2017. However, based on the question, Irani should have supplied figures of the last three years. But these figures are not available as NCRB data is only available till 2017.
But that’s not all. Irani offered a cookie-cutter response when specifically asked about measures taken by the government to curb domestic violence.
In response to Chiklikar’s question on the steps taken by the Government to curb domestic violence, Irani responded with the purpose of the existence of The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005. Her very generic response said that the Act was brought into effect in October 2006 so as to to provide protection and support to victims of domestic violence, and that it provides for appointment of Protection Officers and registration of Service Providers by State Governments for carrying out various duties and functions relating to protection and relief to women suffering from domestic violence.
Further, Irani said that the Ministry has advised the State and UT Administrations to allocate separate budgets for smooth functioning of Protection Officers (PO), support provision to survivors, as well as training and capacity building of Police, Judiciary, Medical Officers, Service Providers, along with creating mass awareness about the Act. The Ministry has also advised States to provide information to aggrieved women about their rights in a simplified manner in local languages or dialects.
This response offers no specific information about what exactly are the support provisions to survivors, what kind of training is provided to the police, judiciary, medical officers etc., and more importantly, details of the outreach program so as to empower potential and current survivors of domestic violence about their rights. Also, what happens to survivors of marital rape considering it is not considered a crime.
It is worth noting here that as per the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), 31.3 per cent of women that have ever been married have experienced physical, sexual or emotional violence caused by their spouses.
What is more worrying about the survey data is that a lot of women in India are, surprisingly, supportive of domestic violence. As per the survey, 54.8% of the women in India between the ages of 40 to 49 were most supportive of domestic violence, while 47.7% of girls between the age of 15 and 19 agreed with violence by husbands.
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