The issue of apathy towards violence against women is a growing concern for all those who are a part of the fight to find a solution to the problem. The inadequacy of the existing laws on rape and sexual assault adds to the prejudiced and shoddy investigation and collection of evidence by the police, as well as tardy and prolonged legal processes without any certainty of conviction, to cumulatively ensure that legal consequences for the crimes perpetrated by the accused are rarely pursued. Currently the Indian Penal Code trivializes any form of sexual assault not involving the penile penetration of a woman’s vagina by a man who is not her husband to “outraging the modesty of a woman”, a bailable offence carrying a maximum sentence of only 2 years and a minimum of only a fine. This means that under Indian law the perpetrators of aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault by a mob, anal/oral rape, rape with objects, marital rape, rape of transgender, intersex and male-bodied people, stripping, public parading and the grabbing of our bodies that we have all experienced in public and private spaces – can all roam free and continue to assault women freely provided they have the money to pay bail.
What is deeply worrying is the violence perpetrated upon women by law enforcement personnel who are entrusted with the task of combating violence upon civilians. A few days ago on July 23, 2012 a woman was gang-raped by Uttar Pradesh policemen led by Sub-Inspector Virendra Kumar, after she was lured to the Khadda police station with the false offer of a job. Two weeks before that, UP sub-inspector Awasthi attempted to rape a dalit woman whom he had summoned to the Mall police station in Lucknow district to settle a police complaint she had filed. UP policemen also raped and murdered a young girl in Lakhimpur-Khiri district earlier this year. This clear pattern of custodial rape sends a clear message which all women are only too aware of – women enter a police station braving the possibilities of rape, molestation and sexual harassment. These possibilities are infinitely higher if the woman is poor, dalit, adivasi, transgender, disabled, unaccompanied – the list goes on. Custodial rape and sexual assault have also been proactively used to torture women like Soni Sori, an adivasi schoolteacher from Chhattisgarh, whose rape was ordered by SP Ankit Garg, a recent recipient of the President’s Gallantry Award. Counterinsurgency operations by the army and state-sponsored paramilitary groups have routinely raped women from the areas they target, in the North-East, Kashmir and Central India. This month alone army jawans attempted to rape a minor girl in Demow, Assam while she was collecting firewood, while five women were sexually assaulted by men in uniform in Bijapur, Chhattisgarh when the army came upon a gathering in the village.
The role the police play in suppressing and negating rape complaints against civilians contributes hugely to the underreporting of violent crimes against women. In the wake of several rapes in the capital city of Delhi, recorded interviews of Delhi policemen found that a majority held extremely offensive views on rape, such as opinions that only 10% of rape cases were “true cases”, while the rest were false cases filed by sex workers dissatisfied by their pay. This attitude of dismissing rape cases based on assumptions about sex work and an inability to comprehend the real dangers faced by sex workers means that all women, especially sex workers, find filing an FIR around rape or sexual assault a highly intimidating process. The humiliating coerced custodial stripping of athlete Pinki Pramanik also clearly highlights the ways in which transphobia and gender policing by the state, compounded by unethical and salacious media transmission of video clips, serve to degrade gender and sexuality minorities.
While the daily rapes of transgender women, dalit and adivasi women and countless poor women go unreported in police stations and by the media, the media sensationalizes cases where victims and their families have the resources to pursue justice, using the pictures of the victims of such crimes to sell rape to their male audiences. In the recent case of a young woman in Guwahati, a news reporter recorded over 20 minutes of footage of her sexual assault by a mob of men before any intervention took place. The reaction of the chairperson of the National Commission for Women, Mamta Sharma, blaming the way women dress for inciting such acts of violence, is reprehensible and joins a long list of elected officials, bureaucrats, judges and police people blaming the survivor of the assault for the violence perpetrated by another human being. Instead, we demand that the government set up rape crisis helplines and centers with personnel qualified to assist survivors of sexual assault in receiving immediate medical treatment and support as they deal with trauma and pursue justice.
According to the statistics for 2011 compiled by the NCRB, among Indian megacities, Bangalore has the highest number of crimes committed against women after Delhi. The apathy towards such violent crimes against women has gone on long enough. Enough is enough! We will come together to voice our dissent and go on strike. This day we refuse to contribute to productivity in our workplaces, to the preparation of food in our homes, to our clients or our families. Our struggle is also on the streets and in our homes, fighting violence everywhere we go. We will be on strike starting at 10 a.m. and take the bus to Town Hall on 26th July, to spend time with each other, sharing, singing, telling our stories, teaching each other what we know, learning from each other what we don’t, and planning our sustained campaign for justice. How long can they remain silent if women from every city, town and village do the same? How long? And if nothing happens, we will do this again. And again. Let us gather as women, as transgenders, as men who understand, as human beings, to show that even SILENCE IS VIOLENCE. Raise our voices. Be heard!
Our demands:
· The government should immediately organize public hearings to solicit suggestions that enable the Criminal law Amendment Bill, 2010, to effectively tackle the spectrum of sexual violence against victims of any gender and marital relationship to the perpetrator, into graded non-bailable offences of sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, and sexual offences, based on the concepts of harm, injury, humiliation and degradation.
· Rape cases should be investigated not by general police but by specially trained all-women police units in each state consisting of a team that includes a psychiatrist trained in handling post traumatic stress.
· A rape crisis government helpline must be made available and widely publicized along with walk-in shelters for women dealing with domestic violence and domestic sexual abuse.
· All cases of custodial violence or violence perpetrated by the police or armed forces should be fast-tracked through the legal system to rapidly rid law enforcement of its criminal and misogynist personnel.
· A CBI investigation into rape as a weapon of war by the Indian armed forces should begin in order to assess the extent of the rape crisis perpetrated by Indian soldiers in areas of conflict such as the North-East, Kashmir, and the Maoist belt in Central India.
A protest against the apathy towards violence against women and transgenders
11:00 am onwards at Town Hall, Bangalore: 26th July 2012
Organisations Joining hands for Silence is Violence:
End Violence on Women * LesBiT * * Ridhdhi *
Vimochana * Rafiki * Women Against State Repression and Sexual Violence – Karnataka