Central university of south BIHAR

SCHOOL OF LAW AND GOVERNANCE

Assignment on:
‘Examine the issues and problems of Gender Violence
in India’

Submitted to: Dr. Parijat Pradhan

Submitted by:
Name: Shubha Nandini

Enrollment No. : CUSB1713125050

Semester: 3rd
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

In performing my assignment, I had to take the help and guideline of some

respected persons, who deserve my greatest gratitude .In addition, a thank you to
Professor of my Sociology paper Dr. Parijat Pradhan & Dr. H.N Pandey who
introduced me to the Methodology of work, and whose passion for the “underlying
structures” had lasting effect.

I would also like to expand my deepest gratitude to all those who have directly and
indirectly guided me in writing this assignment.

Many people, especially my classmates have made valuable comment suggestions

on this proposal which gave me an inspiration to improve my assignment. I thank
all the people for their help directly and indirectly to complete my assignment.

Shubha Nandini

Contents:
 1. Introduction
2. What is Gender Violence?
3. History of Women’s Movement in India
4. Forms of Gender Violence
5. Issue of Gender Violence in India
6. Development of Gender Violence & Provisions Related to it
7. Suggestion & Conclusion
8. Bibliography

Introduction:
Female infanticide, a lady too scared to walk out of the house alone, girl child abuse, a women
terrified to voice her opinion, molestation at workplace, a girl committing suicide post dowry
harassment, females reluctant to travel by public transport, women scared to travel alone at night
all these instances have a common undertone.

We are discussing ‘Gender Violence’ here which is not just a term but has facets of agony
hidden beneath it. We see instances of gender-based violence all around us, whether it be at
home or outside. BBC quoted a year ago ‘About once every five minutes an incident of domestic
violence is reported in India.’ This is a matter of an utter dismay! On one hand we say
womanhood is to be respected and on other hand few elements in our society are tearing that
beauty and the soul apart.

Gender violence is a barrier to socio-economic growth. In a developing country like India where
the only criteria for development are GDP and welfare, it is sad to see that we are not giving
women that equal power and liberty to be financially independent and contribute towards civic
development.

Women in our society are bearing the burnt in some or the other form such as:

Physical Violence – Leading to injury, impairment, damage.

Sexual Violence – Rape, molestation, forced marriage, abortion etc.

Emotional Violence– Threats, harassment, acid attacks..

Economic Violence – Limiting the access to basic needs, lack of health facility, withholding
monetary supply to name a few..

There are stratums where women are deprived of basic necessities, they are financially
dependent on their family and in few cases even their health and well-being is ignored.
According to WHO estimates, nearly 30% of all women who have ever lived in a relationship
have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner which further resulted
in violence from family
Twenty-four per cent of Indian men have committed sexual violence at some point in their lives,
20% forced their partners to have sex with them, and only 17% of Indian men could be
considered ‘highly equitable’, reveals a survey of six developing countries.

Spousal abuse is so well accepted and normalized in India that a majority of men feel wife-
beating is okay. Low levels of education clearly play a major role in this horrifying trend.

What is Gender Violence:

CAPE uses the term "Gender Violence" as an umbrella term to talk about sexual assault,
relationship violence, stalking, and sexual harassment. Anyone can be a survivor of gender
violence regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, age, class, strength, size, appearance, etc.

Gender violence includes rape, sexual assault, intimate partner violence in heterosexual and same
sex partnerships, sexual harassment, stalking, prostitution and sex trafficking. The term "gender
violence" reflects the idea that violence often serves to maintain structural gender inequalities,
and includes all types of violence against men, women, children, adolescents, gay, transgender
people and gender non conforming. This type of violence in some way influences or is
influenced by gender relations. To adequately address this violence, we have to address cultural
issues that encourage violence as part of masculinity.

History of Women’s Movement in India:

Looking at the history of women empowerment movements’ one can identify some broad
trajectories: in the initial phases a number of women were organizing and mobilizing around the
globe for their rights. The development planners and policy makers in India did not have any
interaction with these groups and they considered feminism as irrelevant to development and it
was viewed as a luxury for the better of women in the industrialized countries. In this phase
development is seen as an administrative problem, whose solution lay in transferring vast amount
of resources and technological innovations from rich to poor countries. Eventually there were
efforts to integrate women in the developmental process, wherein Access to Education and
employment became the indicators of women’s involvement in the development process, but
again under this phase a large chunk of rural women were purview of the developmental process.
But today the question of development is being addressed from the feminist perspective and
concerns about issues like child care, Reproductive Category:Health, violence against women ,
family planning, transfer of technology and rural development have given the concept of
development a new meaning. If development leads only to an increase in production, then it
consequentially tends to reinforce and exaggerate the imbalances and inequalities within and in
between societies. Development has to be an integral process with economic, social and cultural
aspects of an individual’s life, enabling them to the take control of their life situation; herein
comes the concept of empowerment.

Forms of Gender Violence:

Gender-based violence is enacted under many different manifestations, from its most widespread
form, intimate partner violence, to acts of violence carried out in online spaces. These different
forms are not mutually exclusive and multiple incidences of violence can be happening at once
and reinforcing each other. Inequalities experienced by a person related to their race, (dis)ability,
age, social class, religion, sexuality can also drive acts of violence. This means that while women
face violence and discrimination based on gender, some women experience multiple and
interlocking forms of violence.

Various forms are:

1. Physical violence: Physical injury is the most visible form of domestic violence. The
scope of physical domestic/intimate partner violence includes slapping, pushing, kicking,
biting, hitting, throwing objects, strangling, beating, threatening with any form of
weapon, or using a weapon. Worldwide, the percentage of women who suffer serious
injuries as a result of physical domestic violence tends to range from 19% - 55%.
Physical injuries as a result of domestic violence against women are more obvious than
psychological ones, and can be more easily discerned by health professionals as well as
courts of law in the context of legal prosecution.
2. Emotional abuse: Emotional abuse has been gaining more and more recognition in
recent years as an incredibly common form of domestic violence (and therefore a human
rights abuse) within the private home throughout developing nations such as India.
Psychological abuse can erode a woman’s sense of self-worth and can be incredibly
harmful to overall mental and physical wellbeing. Emotional/psychological abuse can
include harassment; threats; verbal abuse such as name-calling, degradation and blaming;
stalking; and isolation.
Women who experience domestic violence overwhelmingly tend to have greater overall
emotional distress, as well as disturbingly high occurrences of suicidal thoughts and
attempts. According to a study by the National Centre for Biotechnology Information,
suicide attempts in India are correlated with physical and psychological intimate partner
violence. Of the Indian women who participated in the study, 7.5% reported attempting
suicide. This correlation is supported by the high rates of domestic violence in India,
although the rates differ greatly by region, individual socioeconomic status and other
factors.
3. Sexual assault: Domestic sexual assault is a form of domestic violence involving
sexual/reproductive coercion and marital rape. Under Indian law, marital rape is not a
crime, except during the period of marital separation of the partners.
The Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) considers the forced sex in marriages as
a crime only when the wife is below 15. Thus, marital rape is not a criminal offense
under IPC. The marital rape victims have to take recourse to the Protection of Women
from Domestic Violence Act 2005 (PWDVA).[27] The PWDVA, which came into force
in 2006, outlaws marital rape. However, it offers only a civil remedy for the offence.
4. Honor killing: An honour killing is the practice wherein an individual is killed by one or
more family member(s), because he or she is believed to have brought shame on the
family. The shame may range from refusing to enter an arranged marriage, having sex
outside marriage, being in a relationship that is disapproved by the family, starting a
divorce proceeding, or engaging in homosexual relations.
In 2010, the Supreme Court of India issued notice seeking data and explanation for rise in
honor killings to the states of Punjab, Haryana, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan,
Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
5. Dowry-related abuse and deaths: In almost all the Hindu families the Ritual of taking
dowry has caused a serious problem in the society. Some newly married brides suffer
domestic violence in the form of harassment, physical abuse or death when she is thought
to have not brought enough dowry with marriage. Some cases end up in suicides by
hanging, self-poisoning or by fire. In dowry deaths, the groom’s family is the perpetrator
of murder or suicide. According to Indian National Crime Record Bureau, in 2012, 8,233
dowry death cases were reported across India, or dowry issues cause 1.4 deaths per year
per 100,000 women in India. For contextual reference, the United Nations reports a
worldwide average female homicide rate of 3.6 per 100,000 women, and an average of
1.6 homicides per 100,000 women for Northern Europe in 2012.
Dowry deaths in India is not limited to any specific religion, and it is found among
Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and others. Some 80% of the total Dowry related crime found in
the Hindu community followed by other Indian Religions as giving Dowry is considered
as an important ritual in the Traditional Hindu Marriage. Furthermore in many parts of
India the Ritual of Tilak(Engagement)done mostly in Hindu families is used by Groom's
Family to Demand a huge sum of money.
The Dowry Prohibition Act 1961, prohibits the request, payment or acceptance of a
dowry, "as consideration for the marriage", where "dowry" is defined as a gift demanded
or given as a precondition for a marriage. Gifts given without a precondition are not
considered dowry, and are legal. Asking or giving of dowry can be punished by an
imprisonment of up to six months, or a fine. It replaced several pieces of anti-dowry
legislation that had been enacted by various Indian states. Murder and suicide under
compulsion are addressed by India's criminal penal code. The law was made more
stringent with Section 498a of Indian Penal Code (enacted in 1983). Under the Protection
of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 (PWDVA), a woman can seek help against
dowry harassment by approaching a domestic violence protection officer.
6. Acid throwing: This is also called acid attack, or vitriolage, is defined as the act of
throwing acid onto the body of a person "with the intention of injuring or disfiguring
[them] out of jealousy or revenge". The most common types of acid used in these attacks
are sulfuric, nitric, or hydrochloric acid. Perpetrators of these attacks throw acid at their
victims, usually at their faces, burning them, and damaging skin tissue, often exposing
 and sometimes dissolving the bones. The long term consequences of these attacks include
blindness and permanent scarring of the face and body. Women and girls are the victims
in 75-80% of cases. Acid attacks are often connected to domestic disputes, including
dowry disputes, and refusal of a proposition for marriage, or of sexual advances. Such
attacks are common in South Asia, in countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, India; and
in Southeast Asia, especially in Cambodia.
7. Stalking: It is unwanted or obsessive attention by an individual or group toward another
person, often manifested through persistent harassment, intimidation, or
following/monitoring of the victim. Stalking is often understood as "course of conduct
directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear". Although
stalkers are frequently portrayed as being strangers, they are most often known people,
such as former or current partners, friends, colleagues or acquaintances.

And there are other more various forms of Gender Violence world wide.

Domestic Violence against Women:

This form of domestic violence is most common of all. One of the reasons for it being so
prevalent is the orthodox and idiotic mindset of the society that women are physically and
emotionally weaker than the males. Though women today have proved themselves in almost
every field of life affirming that they are no less than men, the reports of violence against them
are much larger in number than against men. The possible reasons are many and are diversified
over the length and breadth of the country. According to United Nation Population Fund Report,
around two-third of married Indian women are victims of domestic violence and as many as 70
per cent of married women in India between the age of 15 and 49 are victims of beating, rape or
forced sex. In India, more than 55 percent of the women suffer from domestic violence,
especially in the states of Bihar, U.P., M.P. and other northern states.

The most common causes for women stalking and battering include dissatisfaction with the
dowry and exploiting women for more of it, arguing with the partner, refusing to have sex with
him, neglecting children, going out of home without telling the partner, not cooking properly or
on time, indulging in extra marital affairs, not looking after in-laws etc. In some cases infertility
in females also leads to their assault by the family members. The greed for dowry, desire for a
male child and alcoholism of the spouse are major factors of domestic violence against women in
rural areas. There have been gruesome reports of young bride being burnt alive or subjected to
continuous harassment for not bringing home the amount of demanded dowry. Women in India
also admit to hitting or beating because of their suspicion about the husband’s sexual
involvement with other women. The Tandoor Murder Case of Naina Sahni in New Delhi in the
year 1995 is one such dreadful incident of a woman being killed and then burnt in a Tandoor by
his husband. This incidence was an outcome of suspicion of extra marital affairs of Naina Sahni
which led to marital discord and domestic violence against her.

In urban areas there are many more factors which lead to differences in the beginning and later
take the shape of domestic violence. These include – more income of a working woman than her
partner, her absence in the house till late night, abusing and neglecting in-laws, being more
forward socially etc. Working women are quite often subjected to assaults and coercion sex by
employees of the organization. At times, it could be voluntary for a better pay and designation in
the office.

Violence against young widows has also been on a rise in India. Most often they are cursed for
their husband’s death and are deprived of proper food and clothing. They are not allowed or
encouraged for remarriage in most of the homes, especially in rural areas. There have been cases
of molestation and rape attempts of women by other family members in nuclear families or
someone in the neighbourhood. At times, women are even sexually coerced by their partner
themselves against their will. They are brutally beaten and tortured for not conceiving a male
child. Incidents like, ripping off a woman’s womb for killing the female foetus when she
disagrees for abortion have also come to light especially in rural areas. Female foeticide and
female infanticide continue to be a rising concern.

Also as expressed by Rebecca J. Burns in the following lines, “When I am asked why a woman
doesn’t leave abuser I say: Women stay because the fear of leaving is greater than the fear of
staying. They will leave when the fear of staying is greater than the fear of leaving.” A common
Indian house wife has a tendency to bear the harassment she is subjected to by her husband and
the family. One reason could be to prevent the children from undergoing the hardships if she
separates from the spouse. Also the traditional and orthodox mindset makes them bear the
sufferings without any protest.
Other forms of physical abuse against women include slapping, punching, grabbing, burdening
them with drudgery, public humiliation and the neglect of their health problems. Some of the
other forms of psychological torment against them could be curtailment of their rights to self-
expression and curbing the freedom to associate with the natal family and friends.

Domestic Violence against Men:

There is no question that domestic violence directed against women is a serious and bigger
problem, but domestic violence against men is also increasing gradually in India. The supremacy
of men in the society makes one believe that they are not vulnerable to domestic violence.
Battering of men by their spouse and family members has become a concerned issue and is
another form of domestic violence under purview of judiciary. In India, compared to violence
against women, violence against men is less frequent but it has already taken a deadly shape in
many of the western countries by now.

Males have reported incidences of assault against them like pushing, shoving, slapping,
grabbing, hitting which are intended to harm them and also take their lives on many occasions.
Recently, hundreds of husbands gathered in Chandigarh and Shimla to voice their opinion for
men’s rights and protection against domestic violence subjected to them by their wives and other
family members. It reflects the need for a special law for curbing domestic violence against men
in present times.

If we contemplate over the reasons behind this form of domestic violence we would find some of
the possible causes such as not abiding by the instructions of the wives’, inadequate earning of
men, infidelity towards wives, not helping the partner in household activities, not taking a proper
care of children, abusing the spouse’s family, infertility of men, spying the activities of partner,
doubting the partner all the time and not trusting her, revolt by the wife when asked to look after
in-laws etc. On many occasions, the spat between men and women becomes public thereby
influencing the society around especially in the villages. In urban areas such forms of violence
may go unreported because of greater privacy. Also the families find their reputation at stake in
urban areas.

-Babu et al. surveyed both genders on domestic violence in eastern region of India. The results
show that 16% of women had reported experiencing physical forms of domestic violence, 25%
sexual form, 52% psychological, and 56% reported any form of domestic violence. Men reported
being perpetrators of domestic violence with 22% reporting some form of physical domestic
abuse, 17% sexual, 59% psychological, and 59.5% any form of domestic abuse. Men reported
experiencing higher prevalence of all forms of violence, but reported experiencing lowest rates
of sexual violence. The perpetrator of domestic violence, physical or sexual or psychological,
was typically the husband in majority of cases and in some cases husbands' parents. Further, low
income and low education increased the risks of domestic violence.

Other Forms of Domestic Violence in India:

There are some more possible forms of domestic violence prevalent in India other than the ones
listed above. On a serious note, family wars or clan wars are deadly forms of domestic violence
across the country. The reason of such type of violence include dispute over property, physically
or emotionally abusing any member of other family or clan, any religious cause or conflict
arising during a religious ceremony, jealousy because of progress and financial status of other
family, inter-caste marriage etc. This form of violence is common in many states like Haryana,
Punjab, Andhra Pradesh etc.

One of the other forms of domestic violence is ill-treatment of servants and maids in households.
In many of the affluent homes, servants are deprived of their salary and basic necessities. They
are harassed and beaten and to work without even taking adequate rest. Similarly maids are
molested by males in the family. Atrocities against small children working as servants are
common and increasing.

To some extent media is also responsible for contributing to all the above forms of violence. The
exaggerated news coverage of reports of domestic violence, the daily soaps screening the torture
of a daughter-in-law at the hands of family members, the films portraying an element of violence
against people of all age groups etc. are some of the menaces which media is causing. It is
influencing the mindset of the viewers strongly. The problem arises when instead of taking a
lesson from those news clippings, films, and television shows, people start enacting the same in
their homes. Comparatively, the visual media is far more influencing than the print and
electronic media in these cases. Illiteracy and mob mentality of majority of Indians misguides
them in all these cases.
Issues of Gender Violence in India:

A major issue that haunts the process of development and empowerment in India is the issue of
Gender violence. The many forms of violence against women and girl children are to be
understood as gender violence. Only when we look at violence not as a private issue but a
developmental and human rights issue, that we will be able to see the question in its totality.
Violence has an economic, social and political cost to society and is not a private affair. Gender
violence is rooted in the theory that the cause of domestic violence is one person’s arbitrary
belief in the right to exert power over another person, interpersonal interactions or interpersonal
relations and is situated in the socio-economic and political content of power relations.

In South Asia , in the absence of State support structures, family is a group that one looks to for
love, gentleness and solidarity, yet it is one of the very few groups which uses physical force
leading to the increasing problem of violence in our society. It is well known that as bonds of
tradition weaken with modernization, gender violence within families tends to increase.
Domestic violence is not unique to India, nor is it a recent phenomenon. But in India what is
unusual is the resistance to its elimination by society at large and society’s lack of recognition of
it as a serious issue. What is recent however is the courage of women to face up to domestic
violence—not just women in organized groups but also female victims who are well aware of the
adverse consequences that “going public” will have on their lives. With the backdrop of the
patriarchal social structure, the tradition of familial piety and the asymmetrical gender
expectations in India, this defiant movement to expose domestic violence has created the space
for a national debate on the issue.

In India, in the recent past, it has been primarily due to the efforts of the Women’s movement
that violence against women was recognized as an issue meriting serious concern. Towards
Equality, Report of 1974, this sharply highlighted the abysmal low status of women in modern
India, and focused attention on the fact that despite many progressive social legislation’s and
constitutional guarantees, women’s status had not improved much (Towards Equality Report,
1974). However, this report did not include violence as an important issue in its discussion on the
status of women. It was only in 1995, the Indian Government had recognized violence against
women as one of the eleven critical areas of concern.
Gender violence is rooted in the theory that the cause of domestic violence is one person’s
arbitrary belief in the right to exert power over another person, interpersonal interactions or
interpersonal relations and is situated in the socio-economic and political content of power
relations. In Indian families, most of the working class women, even while facing violence, also
face the trivializing of this reality in their lives. Middle class women face another kind of
censoring of the violence that they face within homes. The public private divide which operates
very strongly in many middle class women’s lives do not allow them to speak about the
humiliation and violence they undergo. Both these trivializing as well as silencing are political
acts which support a structure of oppression of women. Girls who observe domestic violence are
more likely to tolerate abusive partners as adults, thus subjecting another generation to the same
sad dynamics. The wife’s tolerance is explained in terms of traditional socialization or learned
helplessness. Women tend to be the peacemakers on relationships, the ones responsible for
making the marriage work.

Developments of Gender Violence and Provisions Related to it:

Traditionally violence against women was considered women’s issue to be addressed through
counseling, legal aid and organizing women’s shelters. However, the issue came into sharp focus
in the 1980’s with the widespread coverage by the mass media of growing incidents of torture of
brides, of dowry deaths and of the localized populous protests against these heinous crimes. The
campaigns by women and the slogan that, “ A suicide in the family is murder”, has brought
about a change in the Indian Penal Code through Section 498 A, and for the first time
criminalized domestic violence and created a much needed space for a distressed women facing
violence in her marital home. The agitation against liquor in Andhra Pradesh also brought in the
issue of violence in the public realm. There has now increasingly been a feeling that definition of
violence only as physical acts of aggression are inadequate. The understanding of violence has to
incorporate the imperceptible psychological unseen day to day violence perpetrated within the
families through cultural, religious practices, inter personal, interrelationships, language, gesture
and socialization.
Despite the growing interest and recognition of the issue of domestic violence there is a dearth of
literature on domestic violence in India. We do not have much data on domestic violence except
few qualitative studies of a very small sample. Three studies from Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and
Maharashtra and Karnataka have clearly shown that domestic violence is an all-pervasive
phenomenon in India. It showed that violence cuts across caste, class, religion, age and
education. Inspite of economic prosperity and high literacy rate two out of every five wives
experience physical abuse.

In Indian families, most of the working class women, even while facing violence, also face the
trivializing of this reality in their lives. Middle class women face another kind of censoring of the
violence that they face within homes. The public private divide which operates very strongly in
many middle class women’s lives does not allow them to speak about the humiliation and
violence they undergo. Both these trivializing as well as silencing are political acts which
support a structure of oppression of women . Girls who observe domestic violence are more
likely to tolerate abusive partners as adults, thus subjecting another generation to the same sad
dynamics. The wife’s tolerance is explained in terms of traditional socialization or learned
helplessness. Women tend to be the peacemakers in relationships, the ones responsible for
making the marriage work.
Suggestion & Conclusion:

Gender violence remedies is that what exactly we are looking for in the process of minimising
their occurrences. Is it so that we want to gather more information about such cases for just
expressing our concern over this issue with more accuracy, having facts and figures at hand? Or
instead of just raising our voices, we want to clean up the mess with shear force and
determination?

The role of non-governmental organizations in controlling the domestic violence and curbing its
worse consequences is crucial. Sakshi — a violence intervention agency for women and children
in Delhi works on cases of sexual assault, sexual harassment, child sexual abuse and domestic
abuse and focuses on equality education for judges and implementation of the 1997 Supreme
Court’s sexual harassment guidelines. Women’s Rights Initiative — another organization in the
same city runs a legal aid cell for cases of domestic abuse and works in collaboration with law
enforcers in the area of domestic violence.

Unfortunately, at present there is no single law in the Indian Constitution which can strictly deal
with all the different forms of ‘Domestic Violence’ as discussed in this essay. There is an urgent
need for such a law in the country. In fact, there has also been misuse of section 498-A and
DVA, 2005 because of restricted definition of cruelty subjected to married women.

Thus I would like to conclude and suggest that we can eliminate gender violence only if we
change the values of our society. We need to begin with the individual. Each individual must
make a pledge about his or her own immediate action in private as well as public life if age old
practices and values are to be changed. There is a need to measure one’s masculinity in terms of
equality. One can start at home by teaching one’s son to fight against inequality and to teach the
daughter to break the silence. In this new millennium there is a need to move beyond the family.
Supporting women’s efforts and promoting men’s role in gender peace are important. A new
approach is needed, one that supports the family as an institution based on equality, love and
respect rather than on power and privilege for men and boys and weakness and subservience
prescribed for women and girls. Children both male and female should be raised by instituting
qualities of tenderness and nurturance as well as assertion. Only then will a healthy respect be
ensured and gender violence be eliminated.
Bibliography:

1. www.wikigender.org
2. www.youthkiawaaz.com
3. Gender-Based Violence: Perspectives from Africa, the Middle East, and India edited by
edited by Yanyi K. Djamba, Sitawa R. Kimuna.
4. Feminist Counselling and Domestic Violence in India edited by Sangeeta Rege, Padma
Bhate-Deosthali, Padma Prakash.