Almost every day we read or hear of a new incident of rape or sexual attack, abduction, kidnapping, molestation of women and children.
The recent rape by a cab driver once again focuses on the vulnerability of women travelling at night and how unsafe women and children are in our country.
Data from various sources indicate a steep rise in violence against women and children across India. National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) statistics show that between 1953 and 2011, the incidence of rape rose by 873 per cent.
The latest National Family Health Survey Women and Men in India 2014 indicated that one in five women (20 per cent) experience domestic violence perpetrated by their husbands.
Cruelty by husbands and relatives continue to have the highest share (38 per cent) of crimes against women, followed by assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty (23 per cent), kidnapping and abduction (17 per cent) and rape (11 per cent).
But the rate of conviction remained very low in most cases related to crimes against women in 2013. The rate was as low as 4.4 per cent in rape and dowry death-related cases.
In cases of kidnapping, it was just 2.5 per cent while it was 3.1 per cent in cases related to assault with intent to outrage modesty.
While the conviction rate was 2.2 per cent in dowry prohibition cases, it was 5.2 per cent in cases of immoral trafficking.
A significant number of these cases had out-of-court settlements or the witnesses turned hostile. It implies the pressure that may have been put on the girl to withdraw the case.
The recent Uber cab incident proves this point. Yadav was acquitted in a previous sexual offence as there was insufficient evidence.
We need a mechanism to track sex offenders for life, as elsewhere in the world. In India, a child goes missing every eight minutes, according to data from NCRB.
Almost 40 per cent of those children have not been found. It says 60,000 children in 2011 were reported missing from a total of 28 states and Union territories.
Of these, more than 22,000 are yet to be located. West Bengal had the highest number of missing children with more than 12,000 missing in 2011.
Madhya Pradesh was next with 7,797 cases while Delhi had 5,111 cases. Worryingly, however, all these states have more missing girls than boys.
There is a lack of inter-state cooperation and a need for an integrated country-wide database for missing children.
The need of the hour is to have a national tracking system that could track a child missing in one state to a search across the country. This system should be anchored by the home ministry, GoI, as the first place a person goes to report a missing child is the local police station.
The alarming rate of crime against children is also a serious concern for all. NCRB data says a total of 38,172 cases of crimes against children were reported in the country during 2012 as compared to 33,098 cases during 2011, suggesting an increase of 15.3 per cent.
Rape cases against children in India have increased by 20 per cent between 2011 and 2012. Contrary to the general perception, the recent Delhi police affidavit filed before the Delhi High Court stated that over 60 per cent of all cases of sexual offences against women and children, such as rape and molestation, were committed by known persons and family members.
It reveals that close relatives such as the father, step-father, brother, cousin, uncle, brother-in-law and father-in-law were accused in over 241 rapes out of 1,704.
Over 430 rapes reported were committed by a neighbour or family friend. It is a known fact that the majority of sexual offences are committed by persons known to the child.
In our country it is not mandatory for schools and other children’s institutions to conduct a police verification of employees prior to being hired.
Neither is it mandatory to have a child protection policy in these. Despite a plethora of laws, crime against women and children has not reduced nor has it prevented a criminal offence from occurring.
The fundamental reason for this are the deep-rooted patriarchal and feudalistic values inherent in our society.
A culture of silence, built around notions of shame, stigma and the sullying of the family name have forced most women and children to keep silent.
We seek solutions in symbolic overtures such as increase female staff in the law-enforcement force, judiciary, cab and bus drivers, gender and child-friendly infrastructure and implementing machinery.
The established collective conscience of society and norms in terms of gender, deep-rooted structures of patriarchy that ascribe a particular role for women emphasising duty and submission make the position of women and children more subjugated.
What is needed at the fundamental level is a social change which must seek to reform the mindset and established belief system of our society with respect to gender and child rights and the dominant notion of masculinity.
Such changes can be achieved, but it requires instilling values based on gender parity and child rights in our society. This change in equation should begin at home, community and local informal and formal governance structures to accept women as equals.
The school curriculum and syllabus should include life skills education wherein these dominant values are questioned. A changed mindset must be accompanied by institutional reforms wherein the concerned stakeholders should be sensitised to gender parity and child rights.
Rita Panicker is founding director of Butterflies and helps street and working children to lobby for their rights and launch their own self-help organisations
