By Santosh Digal
Indian women need better treatment by society and government, says Sister Sujata Jena, a social worker and human rights activist.
The member of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary was reacting to a survey report that projected India as the world’s most dangerous country for women because of the high risk of sexual violence.
The survey report released on June 26 noted that women in India were being forced into slave labor.
The Thomson Reuters Foundation survey quizzed about 550 experts on women’s issues.
The abuse against females starts in the cradle in India and continues until woman’s death, bemoans Sister Jena said.
“The culture of impunity for offenders of sexual abuse against women, blaming women for provocative clothing, seeing women as objects for sexual pleasure, encouraging rape victims to compromise, sluggish Indian judicial system are some of the reasons,” she added.
In recent times some political parties and their workers provoke violence against women. They are the ones who initiate instances of violence for their gain and spread hate feelings. And the victims are always the minorities, Dalits, Muslims and poor. The politicians are protected by the law, victims remain as victims forever, she explained.
The government has not done anything to reduce. The Supreme Court ruling on Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe atrocities prevention has a bad effect on the reporting of crimes. Eventually, the law protects the offenders and not the victims, Sister Jena said.
Data show nearly 40 crimes against women take place every hour in Indian families.
According to the Thomson Reuters Foundation poll of experts, women across India – from executives in gleaming corporate towers to those toiling behind closed doors of middle-class homes, in factories or farms – face the same dangers of sexual violence and harassment.
Crimes against women in India spiked more than 80 percent between 2007 and 2016, according to government data.
Nearly 40,000 rapes were reported in 2016 despite a greater focus on women’s safety after the fatal gang-rape of a student in New Delhi in 2012 that sparked nationwide protests and led to tougher laws against sexual abuse.
India recorded 539 cases of sexual harassment at the workplace in 2016, up 170 per cent from 2006, a joint report by EY and Indian industry body FICCI from last year showed.