Nirbhya case: One year on, still long way to go

Honour Our Women

An initiative for gender sensitization

It has been one year since the Nirbhaya gang-rape case and it is still fresh in our minds as a black day for the whole country. BJP MP and national president of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) Anurag Singh Thakur launched a nationwide campaign ‘Honour Our Women’ (HOW) in the memory of the first death anniversary of Nirbhaya, to bring a change in society by sensitising men on respecting women. Launching the initiative, Anurag Singh Thakur said, “The HOW initiative is a befitting tribute to one woman who lost her life, but awakened a million others. A year back, when thousands of men and women took to the streets in protest, they weren’t just demanding justice for Nirbhaya – they also wanted a guarantee that there will not be any more Nirbhaya cases ever again. But despite new laws and all the policing, cases of rape and crime against women seems to be on the rise.”

Terming the December 16 Delhi gang-rape case as a matter of shame, Leader of the Opposition  in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley  said the protests against it was a silver lining because there was a guilt within the society that led to such large-scale protests against the incident.

Member of the Parliament (Lok Sabha) from Biju Janata Dal (BJD) Jay Panda was also present at the event; he said “Implementation of laws requires certain commitment from politicians, administration, media and from the public.”

“This is also about mindset and if we implement laws in a better way, then there will be a better mindset for law among the people,” Panda added.

Other than Arun Jaitley and Jay Panda, conference brought together eminent personalities from various walks of life including , journalism and cinema, like Arnab Goswami, Editor-in-Chief, Times Now, Ashutosh, Managing Editor, IBN7; Rahul Kanwal, Editor-at-Large, Headlines Today; Vivek Oberoi, Actor; Chetan Bhagat, Author; and Kapil Sharma, stand-up comedian, Comedy Nights With Kapil to pledge their commitment to the HOW campaign, and to discuss effective measures of bringing this change in male mindset to honour women and on ways to spread the message across our personal and professional lives.

—Nishant Kumar Azad

Nirbhaya Fund still unutilized

Fooling people around has always been a main time pass for the UPA Government. The Government has been using various measures to cool off the burning issues and one of them is allotting funds. The ‘Nirbhaya fund’ of 1,000 crore rupees which was announced by the Centre with much fanfare in the Union Budget for safety and empowerment of women earlier this year after the world-wide protests against the Government has not been even touched after a year long period. The fund was announced in the name of the girl who was brutally killed and gang-raped in national capital on December 16, 2012 after a huge public outrage in the wake of incident.

When asked about the fund to the Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, he said that the fund will be utilised soon. The fund’s money was supposed to be utilised for the following schemes:

p  Installation of SOS alert system in the existing handsets through free downloading of suitable software and backend integration of police administration to respond to distress calls in the minimum response time.

p  Vulnerability mapping

p  Providing support for prevention focused activities such as awareness generation through sustained campaign initiatives against violence.

p  Advocacy

p  Information dissemination regarding available services

p  Sensitisation of caregivers

p  New measures for preventing violence and also replicating good practices in identified locations. 

Most of the above schemes, as you maybe already realising, are far from to be get started. Just allotting funds will never be a solution unless it is used properly and systematically to cure the deep rooted problem of increasing incidents of rape and molestation. Fear of the law will definitely have to be created in the minds of people.

—Heena Nanda

Action taken report on Verma Committee recommendations

The former Chief Justice of India, Justice JS Verma, submitted a report of his three-member committee to the Government after the gang-rape of a 23-year-old girl in the national Capital on December 16, 2012; suggesting amendments to criminal laws in India. The committee, in its 630-page report to the Government, suggested amendments to provide for higher punishment to rapists, including those belonging to police ranks and public servants.

The main points in the report are:

p  Intentional touching, using obscene language or gestures should be treated as a sexual assault offence.

p  Rape of a minor should carry a minimum jail term of 10 years and gang rape should carry at least 20 years imprisonment

p  Make marital rape a criminal offence.

p  Special commissioners for women’s security must be deployed in all areas of conflict.

p  A senior officer of security forces or police liable to a jail term of at least seven years if his/her subordinate commits rape.

p  Impose oppressive diktats such as banning girls and women from using mobile phones, wearing western clothes or venturing out unaccompanied.

p  Put in place medico-legal guidelines on how to perform a medical examination of a victim of sexual assault.

p  Institute a Police Complaints Authority at district level to look into complaints against police officers who do not register complaints of gender crimes.

p  All police stations should have CCTV cameras to ensure proper procedures.

p  Increase the number of female police on patrol and on duty in police stations

p  Lawmakers who have been charged in a court of law with serious offences such as sexual offences or dowry crimes should be disqualified from contesting elections.

p  The formal curriculum in Indian schools must be drastically revamped and sex education must be made an integral part of the curriculum.

Out of all the above points which are in the report following actions has been taken by the Government:

p  Protect the victim by penalising policemen who fail to register FIRs in cases relating to sexual offences.

p  Proposal has been made to reduce the age of sexual consent from 18 to 16 years.

p  Protect the victim by penalising policemen who fail to register FIRs in cases relating to sexual offences.

—Heena Nanda

R Akila, district president of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) says that there has been increase in public awareness. Women are coming out and openly talking about atrocities committed on them. Self confidence of women has definitely increased but the problem is in the enactment of laws formed by the Government. The spirit of doing something for the women is nowhere. Even the administration of Nirbhaya fund has not been assigned to any ministry yet and was passed in pressure. Sensitivity for these kinds of cases is missing in the Government and the politicians.

Meenakshi Lekhi, spokesperson of BJP, says that the Government should first identify where it is lacking behind. The best option Government could have adopted long time back is location wise mapping of the areas which are more vulnerable. For a country like India which is witnessing cases like rape in every corner, amount of 1,000 crore as a fund for women’s safety is very less. Till now Government has not arranged for any training and safety programmes for the women. The reason for all this is that the Government is not serious on the issue.