Women
in India have enjoyed the protection of their male counterparts from times
immemorial. Men in India are expected to give their lives to protect their
sisters, daughters , wives and also unknown women . Hardly any woman has died
fighting for the country. Only in this one area men have been allowed the
exclusive privilege for dying in the name of protecting women , society
and motherland even as women have lobbied for reservations in more secure and
comfortable positions in government and the private sector. Not
only are women in India protected by men they have been provided
unconstitutional immunity of prosecution from many heinous crimes. Crimes of
Domestic Violence, Spousal abuse, Sexual harassment and Rape. Even though the
data shows that over 65000 husbands are driven to suicide due to spousal abuse
annually the government has so far not created a single gender law to safeguard
the rights of men in gender crimes. As a result of this not only do women
commit these offences with complete disdain they in turn accuse the male
partner of that offence immediately thereafter. Consequently we see widespread
misuse of IPC 498a , Rape and the DV act and not a single women has even
been punished for misusing these laws against her husband/boyfriend. Rape of
Males and boys is a still a taboo subject owing the protector and provider
roles that males are expected to don for women. Archaic laws, feminist media
and pressure from women’s rights groups do not even allow a woman to be accused
of Rape. As a consequence very news of Indian female sex offenders or female
abusers ever comes out in the public domain.
Democratic
Law making process in the Sexual Assault billLately
the Government after looking at the changing dynamics of sexual orientation of
the Indian citizenry decided to make the Rape a Gender neutral offence so that
men also could be accorded protection from female sex offenders. The Legal
luminaries of the Law commission of India after a lot deliberation and studying
the changing sexual dynamics and sexual orientation of the Indians in its one
Hundred and Seventy Second Report on Review of Rape Laws make a very
progressive recommendation that the Rape be made a gender neutral offence.
The same legislation was then passed on a eminent parliamentary committee
chaired by a the Honorable Shri Venkaiah Naidu from the BJP. The Committee
considered the Bill in eight sittings held on 4th, 21st, 28th January, 4th,
11th, 18th , 21st and 26th February, 2013. The Chairman in the Committee's
sitting held on 4th January, 2013 apprised the Committee about the reference of
the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2012 and the Committee decided to issue a
Press Release soliciting views of the individuals/organizations, women
organizations on various provisions of the Bill. The Committee also decided to
obtain the views of the State Governments/UT Administrations on the Bill. In
response to the Press Release (Annexure-II) issued, the Committee received 492 memoranda
out of which 402 memoranda signed by individuals were found to be identical.
The extensive and exhaustive review of the committee can only be understood
when one goes through their report entire report. After such an exhaustive
exercise the committee recommended that men and boys are equally prevalent to
rape and sexual assault and hence the crime is a gender neutral crime.
Derailing
the democratic law making process by a handful women’s groups and female
hooligans
Over
the years India has witnessed the increasing opposition from a very small
minority of women’s rights organizations against granting protection to men
from crimes committed by women in gender relationships. Neither are this
elected representative and neither do they have the people’s mandate to make
laws. They however resort to female hooliganism on streets when needed. Crimes
like Domestic violence, Intimate terror and Rape are offenses which have been
proved to have been committed by women on innumerable occasions and are recognized
offences in the west. However in India these women’s organizations wage a
ferocious war to deny men any protection from these heinous offences. The
suggestions provided by the handful of aggressive women’s groups in all laws
clearly include statutory language by addressing the accused as a universal,
“HIM” and the complainant as a universal, “SHE”. This is nothing less than a
CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY. In the sexual assault case these handful of nondescript
and unimportant women’s groups are now waging a war not to accord equal rights
to men.[1] The government instead of strongly
condemning such short sighted and narrow minded approach to law making and the
blacklisting of such organizations in most cases chooses to fold and reverse
the entire law making process under pressure from such groups. In this case the
under pressure from these women’s groups the lameduck UPA2 chose to
change the whole definition of rape from a gender neutral offence to an older
regressive gender biased offence making the man has the universal accused at
the very last moment against the recommendations of the Law Commission and the
Venkaiah Naidu committee.[2]
Please
stop the law making Tamsaha !!
If
ultimately the feminists are to prevail what is the need for democratic
institutions like the law commission of India and the need to create
committees to study the opinion of the citizenry. The govt can as well make the
head the feminist groups the law maker of the nation and stop all this eye wash
of democratic law making that it plays every time. The present situation leads
to extreme suspicion that these groups have incriminating material with them by
which they blackmail the entire government into submission thereby derailing
the entire democratic law making process.
The
prevalence of Female Sex Offenders
Rarely a day do goes by when we do not hear of a female teacher
bring arrested for criminally chargeable sexual conduct with her teenage male
students. Rapes of drunk or unconscious males by individual women or gang of
women is also very commonly reported in the west. Female sex offenders are
increasing at a very rapid rate in the west and some studies count them as high
as close to 50% of the total volume of sex offenders.
The United States Department of Justice which found a rate of 8.3%
for “Other sexual offenses” for females and The Australia Bureau of Statistics
found a rate of 7.9% for “Sexual assault and related offences” for females.
In a study of 17,337 survivors of childhood sexual abuse, 23% had a female-only perpetrator and 22% had both male and female
perpetrators.[3].
The National center for child abuse and neglect in the US states
that the sexual abuse of children by women, primarily constituted 25%
(approximately 36 000 children) of the sexually abused victims. This statistic
is thought to be underestimated due to the tendency of non-disclosure by
victims.[4]
According to a major 2004 study commissioned by the U.S.
Department of Education - In studies that ask students about offenders, sex
differences are less than in adult reports. The 2000 AAUW data indicate that 42.4 percent of all students report
a female offender .
Some have even suggested as many as 63% of sex abusers may be female.
(Source: Schwartz, B. K., & Cellini, S. R. (1995). Female sex
offenders. [5]
According to a 2011 US Center for Disease Control report there are
an estimated 4,403,010 female
victims of sexual violence that had a female only perpetrator. (Source: The
National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey) [6]
Sadly in India archaic laws, feminist media and pressure from
women’s rights groups do not even allow a woman to be accused of Rape. As a
consequence little very news of Indian female sex offenders comes out in the
public domain.
Rape and Sexual Assault of Males is a recognized crime in the west
already
Britain has already made Sexual Assault law Gender Neutral way
back in 2003. The “Stern Review” published by the Government Equality Office in
2003 was a landmark study of Sexual Assault in the United Kingdom. It greatly
widened the scope of sexual assault and also broke many perpetual myths around
rape till date. The Stern review also dedicated a separate section for calling
out the rising offence of rape against men. Below we quote some landmark
observations of the Stern Review.
a.
“Women , Men and Children and people of all ages and all
social groups can be rape victims”
b.
“Around eight per cent of recorded rape cases are rape of a
man. Men find it very difficult to talk about what has happened to them because
of the common view that a man should be able to fight off an attacker.”
c.
“The Metropolitan Police Service has a leaflet on its website for
male rape victims which set out the problems that men reporting rape can face.
We welcome this initiative, which should give more men the confidence to report
what has happened to them to the police.”
Male
victims of sexual assault – information on a hidden crime
|
Is
it different for a man?
|
Since
1994 the law has recognised the rape of men as a criminal offence. There is
much myth around the sexual assault of men, which leads to many
misunderstandings about the crime and the victims it affects. This has
consequences in the way that men see themselves as victims of sexual crimes,
and stops them from talking about what has happened to them and getting help.
|
Men
experience similar feelings to women, such as shame, self blame and guilt.
They may have extra issues to deal with, due to society’s belief that men
should be able to protect themselves.
|
Rape is defined in the law of England and Wales. The law on rape
was revised in 2003 after a long consultation process and the new Sexual
Offences Act came into force on 1 May 2004. The Sexual Offences Act 2003 (the
Act) says that rape occurs when someone ‘intentionally penetrates the vagina,
anus or mouth of another person with his penis’, that the other person does not
consent to the penetration, and the perpetrator ‘does not reasonably believe
that the other person consents’.
False Rape claims and the Outrageous Indian logic of “Sex with
promise of marriage amounts to Rape”
Epidemic of false rapes is not an India centric problem. Owing to
the epidemic of false cases reported in the UK the Stern report also dedicated
a separate chapter to the issue of false allegations of Rapes. The British
Court of Appeal said that false allegations damage conviction rates of genuine
rapes and are ‘terrifying’ for innocent victims. The penalties for making false
allegations and persisting with them through the legal process in the UK can be
commensurately severe. A complainant making false allegations is normally given
a substantial prison sentence.
One outrageous and one of the most frequently cited reason of Rape in India are
incidents where consensual sexual intercourse between two willing partners
suddenly becomes rape, much later due to a fall out in the relationship and
breakdown in marriage. In the 21st century
where the gender orientations of young people are getting liberalized, this antiquated
logic is still upheld by many courts and leads to a flurry of false rape cases
when the jittered female partners file rape cases to get even with male
partners. The Pune Police women’s cell in a 2010 survey of all rape cases in
the city concluded that in 74
per cent of rapes since 2008 were actually consensual sex based on false
promises of marriage.[7]
In the few weeks after the violent incidents in which a woman and
her boyfriend were brutalized in a bus and the mob fury that followed, even the
police were alarmed at the ferocious increase in the number false rapes
that were filed by women taking advantage of the sentiment of the nation. Below
are just a few news excerpts from those few weeks of the Delhi aftermath
- Times of India 4/1/2013: “90% of
rape cases in Kishanganj false: SP” [8]
- Daily Pioneer 03/01/2013: “10
false rape cases in a week reported”[9]
- Indian Express 05/01/2013:” Moga police takes action against
woman who registered false rape case” [10]
- Hindustan Times 31/01/2013:
“Experts caution against rise in false cases”[11]
- Punjab News Line 02/1/2013:
“Police cautioned against hasty action on false sexual harassment
complaints”
With such overwhelming evidence it cannot be denied that the
overwhelming majority of rape cases pending in courts are either false or
consensual sex converted to rape. The problem with entertaining rape cases with
such outrageous and frivolous grounds is that is puts an enormous pressure on
the overloaded and poorly equipped investigating machinery and most importantly
moves scarce resources away from the genuine cases, which needs attention. Such
misuse of gender allegations has also been observed in 498a and DV act the
misuse of which was referred to as “Legal Terrorism” by the Hon Supreme Court.
Influence of print and electronic media into sexual assault cases
must be strictly regulated
The so called “self-regulating” Indian media has been repeatedly
warned by the honorable courts not act as judge jury and executioner in subjudice
and sensitive gender cases. The Media however has have ignored all requests
from various government agencies and have destroyed the reputation of many
falsely accused in their relentless hounding of the accused and calling
them demons, monsters , and other names in the open press and electronic media.
The media also irresponsibly demands death sentences, castration and other
ghastly medieval punishments knowing very well that there is no provision of
these in the law. Irresponsible media coverage stokes people’s sentiments and
leads to rioting, destruction of public property and death of innocent police
personnel. Media picks and chooses its victims carefully according to their
stature in the society and typically politicians, bureaucrats and rich individuals
are their first targets. Reporting is done based on TRP’s and not on the merits
of the case. Many times the Indian media works in collusion with women’s rights
organizations to extract a hefty settlement from the accused to drop the
charges and then terminate negative coverage. After the case is proved false
the reporting of the case is subdued to a great extent but by then the damage
to the falsely accused is irreparable and lifelong. With close to 70 to 90% of
rape cases being false media regulation in sexual assault cases must be baked
into the text of the law itself to preserve the sanctity of the falsely
accused.
The past few years have witnessed on many occasions a very
disturbing trend in India where knee jerk draconian solutions are forcefully
demanded especially in gender issues at the behest of a handful of aggressive
women’s rights groups, which normally cause unspeakable pain and suffering to
the accused while leaving the main problem completely unsolved. It is
necessary to once again remind the government that while sexual assault is a
crime like no other, a false accusation of sexual assault is also no less than
imposing a death sentence on a person for life. Indians can only hope
that the Indian Govt comes to its senses and makes changes which
are gender neutral (applicable to both genders), balanced, unbiased, and most
importantly do not prejudice any rights available under the
Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993.
[1] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Activists-join-chorus-against-gender-neutral-rape-laws/articleshow/18840879.cms
[2] http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/NewDelhi/Only-men-can-be-booked-for-rape/Article1-1021702.aspx
[3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15894146((Dube, Shanta R et al. “Long-Term
Consequences of Childhood Sexual Abuse by Gender of Victim.” American Journal
of Preventive Medicine. (2005):28(5), p 430 – 438)
[4] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740904000349
[5] In B. K. Schwartz & S. R.
Cellini, (Eds.), The sex offender: Corrections, treatment, and legal practice
(5-22). Kingston, NJ: Civic Research Institute)
[6] http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/NISVS_Report2010-a.pdf
[7] http://www.punemirror.in/index.aspx?page=article§id=2&contentid=201004282010042823514675722129e15§xslt=
[8] http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-01-04/patna/36148093_1_bahadurganj-police-kishanganj-sp-complaint-cases
[9] http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/119813-10-false-rape-cases-in-a-week-reported.html
[10] http://www.indianexpress.com/news/moga-police-takes-action-against-woman-who-registered-false-rape-case/1054916
[11] http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Mumbai/Experts-caution-against-rise-in-false-cases/Article1-982905.aspx