NEW DELHI, 27 October 2006 — Promising some relief for Indian women suffering abuses at the hands of their husbands and in-laws, a new legislation went into effect yesterday envisaging heavy penalties or jail sentences for the offenders.
The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 will recognize all forms of abuse against women in the home, including physical, sexual, verbal, emotional or economic abuse. Under the act, offenders can be jailed for a year or fined up to 20,000 rupees ($441), or both.
According to India’s Women and Child Development Ministry, the law provides an all-encompassing definition of domestic violence which includes not only physical violence by husbands — such as beating or physically harm, sexual violence like forced intercourse, — but verbal or emotional violence such as insults, as well.
The law would protect women against economic violence, which could include not allowing the wife to use her salary, preventing her from taking up a job or not providing her money, food or clothing.
The ministry said women relatives including sisters, mothers, or mothers-in-law have also been extended protection under the law. Officials say the new law focuses on empowering victims by giving them rights over their abuser’s assets, rather than just penalizing offenders. “It’s going to orient women to stand up for their own rights and take the necessary precautions to empower themselves,” Renuka Chowdhury, minister of women and child development, said.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau, there were 155,553 crimes committed against women last year — 68,810 of which were considered to be domestic violence such as dowry deaths and cruelty by husbands and family. But women’s groups say the real figure could be ten times more as many cases go unreported with victims unwilling to speak out, fearing the shame and stigma associated with being a divorced or separated woman in traditional Indian society.
In addition, many women are financially dependent on their abusers and have nowhere to go if they complain to police about being mistreated, they say.
Officials say the new law will change this by providing for a share of the abuser’s property and salary as well as medical damages for physical abuse and in certain cases, he will also have to cover the victim’s legal costs.
The law also provides for the appointment of protection officers and private service-providers to help abused women get medical and legal aid and a safe place to stay.
But the most empowering clause relates to the women’s right to residence in shared households where the law will protect the rights of victims to secure a house or live in her married home.
Despite some of the most powerful figures in India’s political history being women, such as former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her daughter-in-law, Sonia Gandhi, who is president of governing Congress-led coalition, the country remains patriarchal.
According to the ministry of home affairs, a crime is committed against a woman in India every three minutes.
The most common reported form of domestic violence is dowry-related, where women are abused and beaten and even killed by their in-laws for not bestowing enough gifts or money to their husbands’ families at the time of marriage. Many die in infamous “stove burnings” in which in-laws set them ablaze and then say it was a kitchen accident.
Women’s rights campaigners welcomed the law, which is not only applicable to married women, but also to those in live-in relationships as well as women who are sisters, widows, mothers and single women. “This bill will provide them with a safeguard and a sort of sword in their hand so that now they are no more a thing, no more an animal and no more a shoe that you can wear any time and throw it any time,” said Girija Vyas, chairwoman of the National Commission for Women.
Many women’s right groups and non-governmental organizations have been demanding laws to deal with domestic violence in India, as UN studies have shown that 70 percent of married women in the country were victims of beating, rape or coerced sex, and there was no specific legislation to deal with domestic abuse.
State governments would now be appointing a protection officer in each police station to book and pursue cases.
“The ministry has requested all state governments and union territories to ensure that the necessary administrative arrangements are immediately put in place for the commencement of the act,” Renuka said.
But the legislation has been criticized by certain NGOs that said it could be manipulated as it provided wide-ranging powers to women. “It will lead to economic blackmail of men,” Pandurangi Reddy Bharati, who runs an NGO, Save India Family, told the Hindustan Times newspaper. Renuka did not deny that the act could be misused but said there would be “protection officers” to ensure it did not happen. “We will sensitize the officers on all aspects of the law,” she told the paper.
