A SOCIO LEGAL STUDY ON DOWRY AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN INDIA

Abstract

“Violence against women is a manifestation of historically uneven authority relations between men and women, which have paved ways to superiority and discrimination against women by men and to the prevention of the full growth of women”

Domestic violence; social and legal notion that, in the broadest sense, refers to any exploitation - including physical, emotional, sexual or financial - between intimate partners, who often live in the same home. The term is often used precisely to indicate physical assaults on women by their male partners, but, although it's a rare phenomenon, the victims can also be males and so the term domestic violence is used in reference to both males as well as females being assaulted.

In most of the scenarios there is no feasible solution for women sufferers. Many are scared to communicate and describe what happened with them because police fail to provide safety against retaliation. One of the worst-case scenarios is that typical abusers tend to become more aggressive and vengeful specifically towards when women try to separate; many women have been killed by male partners while trying to press charges or obtain protection orders.

Women are most of the time under great threat, even in places where they should be the safest, that is, within their families. For many, "home" is that place where they have to go through a practice of terror and physical attacks at the hands of someone close to them, someone who was supposed to protect them instead. It is this place that threatens lives and gives birth to some of the most heinous forms of violence committed against women and girls. The ones who have been exploited suffer aftershocks and physical and psychological trauma. A girl is taught since her birth that she is weak and she continues to feel the constant urge of needing protection, be it physical, social or economic. These senses of incapability among women have led them to be exploited in almost all stages of their lives. They don’t even have the permission to make their own decisions and enjoy their basic rights or even put forward their ideas and opinions because of the fear of further repercussions. Even fundamental rights such as equality, security, self-esteem and dignity are taken away from them.

This brutality against women has increased, although this violence has been there since ages and is an old practice and exists from the day since family life arose. Women in India have always been a subject to domestic, physical, emotional and mental violence. They do not feel secure anywhere be it their own houses, the roads they take to their offices, public transport, receive medical treatment in hospitals, study in educational institutions and every other place one could think of, this is because they are always regarded as second-class citizens.

The new millennium has put forward with it a greater force towards realizing the incidence of violence against women and an international consensus has developed on the need to look into the matter. The UN General Assembly embrace a convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women around 20 years ago and the Platform for Action adopted at the Fourth International Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 reflect this unanimity. In addition, the Law for the Protection of Women against Domestic Violence of 2005, the Law of Sexual Offenses of 2003, instituted some policies at the national and local level during the last decade, with the aim of bringing down the incidence of sexual and domestic violence and improve the treatment of victims by the criminal justice system. The Domestic Violence Law, which came into effect on October 26, 2006, is in order with the aforementioned international conventions. The 1994 Act on Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) was also proposed to stop exploitation of diagnostic techniques that result in sex-selection abortion. But progress has not been fast due to deep rooted attitudes.