A report on Gender Violence in India breaks down the prevalence of violence and the types of violence that women are being subjected to.

A moving report titled Gender Violence in India by Prajnya shows that violence against women is on the rise in India.

An underreported problem

One important issue that the report discusses are flaws in the annual reports produced by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) about violence against women. For example, the NCRB often reports honor killings as torture or caste violence rather than gender violence because of the existing legal system. For this reason, the rate of violence against women may seem much lower than they actually are.

Prajnya’s report, however, uses new methodology and a variety of reports to provide a more accurate depiction of the crimes being committed against women in India. It draws attention to six kinds of violence: pre‐natal sex selection, child marriage and forced marriage, honor killings, dowry death, domestic violence, and rape.

Pre-natal sex selection

The report finds that pre-natal sex selection practices have resulted in at least 10 million missing girls, since ultrasounds and other sex‐selection tests became available two decades ago-‐a striking example of modern technology facilitating age‐old prejudices.

Child and forced marriage

According to the report, South Asia has the highest rate of marriages involving girls under the age of eighteen. Girls and women are often forced into marriage for a variety of reasons. Some include bringng families together for business reasons. Others involve family honor.

Honor killing

Honor killings or crime is committed in India (particularly in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu) in order to salvage the “honor” of a clan, community or family that has somehow been “violated.” Usually the violation occurs through the actions of a woman in the community choosing a husband, lover or boyfriend, against her family’s wishes. Breach of caste rules also lead to violence.

Dowry deaths

Dowry deaths occur when a woman is either murdered or driven to suicide because the family that she has married into demands a higher dowry (or money given by a woman’s family to her husband and in-laws). Since 2006, there has been an increase of 6.2 percent in dowry deaths in India. Nearly 25.7 percent of total such cases reported in the country were reported from Uttar Pradesh (2,076) and Bihar followed next with 14.5 percent (1,172).

Domestic abuse

Indian women are equally vulnerable to domestic violence. A total of 75,930 cases were reported in the country in 2007 with an increase of 20.3% over 2006 and 35.8% over the average of the previous 5 years (2002-2006).

Rape

Madhya Pradesh has reported the highest number of rape cases (3,010) accounting for 14.5% of total such cases reported in the country. Nearly 9.5% (1,972) of the total victims of rape were girls under 15 years of age, while 15.2% (3,152) were teenage girls (15-18 years). Nearly two-third were women in the age-group 18-30 years. Rapists were known to the victims in as many as 19,188 (92.5%) cases according to NCRB statistics for 2007. Neighbors figured as the most common of perpetrators: in 36 percent of the cases a neighbor was involved.

Further readings

Prajnya 16 Days Campaign Against Gender Violence Facebook Notes

Prajnya 16 Days Campaign Against Gender Violence

An anniversary of violence by Kalpana Sharma, The Hindu, 13 December, 2009

The opinions expressed in this text are those of the author.