By Geetika Dang, Vani S. Kulkarni and Raghav Gaiha
NEW DELHI, Jun 22 2018 (IPS)

Rapes of minors surged from 16 per day in 2001 to 46 per day in 2016. As if this was not horrendous enough, their savagery adds to it.

In 2016, 43.3% of the total female rape victims were minors. Around 13% of the minor female victims were of age 11 and below. The deceased victim in the Kathua rape case from a nomadic Muslim community was barely eight years old. Her crumpled body was found in a blood-smeared dress in January, 2018. A group of Hindu men lured her into a forest, kidnapped her, drugged her, locked her in a Hindu temple, gang-raped her and then strangled her.

Geetika Dang

In April 2018, a four-month-old baby was raped and murdered in the historic Rajwada area in Madhya Pradesh. The infant’s body was found in the basement area of the heritage Shiv Vilas Palace, with blood smears on the stairs telling a barbaric tale. The ravaged body was carried away in a bundle. Many more gruesome cases could be cited but are omitted as they differ in location but not in the brutality. At the risk of overstating it, the surge in the frequency of rapes of minors has been inextricably linked to their brutality in recent years. Why bestial masculinity has risen in recent years is unclear.

Our analysis with the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data and from other sources over 2001-16 yields useful insights into changes in incidence of rapes of minors (per lakh minors) across different states and over time.

Rapes of minors spiked between 2010-14, dropped sharply in 2015, and then spiked again in 2016. Surprisingly, after enactment of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) in 2012, the incidence of rapes of minors surged. It covers crimes such as child rape, sexual assault and harassment and using children for pornography. However, NCRB began collecting data under POCSO in 2014. This may be partly linked to the spike in 2014.

Vani S. Kulkarni

In 2001, the three worst states/union territory were Delhi (4.44), followed by Chattisgarh (4.16) and Madhya Pradesh (3.24). In 2016, the three worst were Delhi (8.32), followed by Arunachal Pradesh (7.97) and Chattisgargh (7.58). Thus, while two out of the three worst states remained unchanged, the incidence of rapes rose.

At the regional level, the central was the worst in 2001 (33.53% of total rapes of minors), followed by a considerably lower share of the northern (19.01), and a slightly lower share of the southern (16.90%). In 2016, the central contributed the largest share (33.62%), followed by the southern (18.41 %), overtaking the northern region (16.10 %).

Raghav Gaiha

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Huge numbers of women and even school children have braved police batons, water cannons and teargas shells in a wave of public fury against India's rape epidemic. Credit: Sujoy Dhar/IPS

By Geetika Dang, Vani S. Kulkarni and Raghav Gaiha
NEW DELHI, Nov 23 2017 (IPS)

The statistics are chilling. As many as 2.24 million crimes against women were reported over the past decade: 26 crimes against women are reported every hour, or one complaint every two minutes. As chilling as these statistics are, they don’t reflect the gory details.

Consider, for example, a few cases reported in the last four weeks.

An 18-month-old girl was brutally raped by her neighbour in broad daylight in outer Delhi’s Aman Vihar, by 33 year old Rakesh, who works in a printing press raped the toddler in front of his own children, a four year old boy and a two year old girl. The child later underwent an emergency surgery for 1.5 hours for the injuries she sustained after the assault (Hindustan Times, 2 November, 2017).

A 19-year-old woman was allegedly abducted and raped by four men near railway tracks in Bhopal on 31 October night when she was returning home after attending a coaching class, police said on 2 November. The men tried to snatch her jewellery but when she resisted, the accused allegedly took the woman under a culvert near the railway tracks and took turns to rape her before fleeing. Three police stations threw out the woman’s complaint, despite the fact that both her parents are in police service. A Government Railway Police (GRP) officer even taunted her for “coming with a filmy story”. It was only when the woman and her parents caught the culprits after a scuffle on 1 November that the police registered a complaint. (FirstPost, 3 November, 2017).

Complaining to police about her gang-rape was the beginning of a new nightmare for Kajal. Officers detained the young woman from Madhya Pradesh state in central India. They beat her with a stick, she says, until she agreed to drop the charges. She was abandoned by her husband and threatened by the accused men (The Guardian, 8 November, 2017).

Geetika Dang

Victims of sexual assault are still just as scared to report to the police for fear of further sexual harassment or rape, and ostracisation by the family and community. Besides, convictions against rapes reported remain abysmally low.

On May 27, 2014, the (alleged) rape and subsequent lynching of two cousins (aged 14 and 12) in Badaun district of Uttar Pradesh led to the arrest of five individuals, who were released after an investigation by India’s Central Bureau of Investigation determined that there was no evidence of rape or murder. The case was dismissed as a double suicide, as the elder cousin had been caught in an “intimate” act with the main accused. Yet, there were no traces of hair or fingerprints on the victim, and doubts thus persist about the exoneration of the accused (including the policeman) (Outlook. 1 June 2014).

In another case, a woman in the same region was gang raped by policemen for refusing to pay a bribe (Kulkarni et al 2014). Equally grim tales of rape, brutality and murder abound in other regions. In 2014, a girl was gang raped twice and then killed by the same group of men in West Bengal. The second assault took place as the victim walked back from the police station, having filed a criminal complaint by naming the attackers. Justice also eludes an Odisha primary school teacher at the time of writing, more than a year after she was killed. She had been harassed by a powerful local gang for denying sexual favours to one of their members, a sub-inspector of schools. Her dying statement led to his arrest, the suspension of a few state officials and dismissal of two policemen. But the assailant, who set her ablaze, is still absconding (Kulkarni et al 2014).

Vani S. Kulkarni

Husbands were mostly responsible for violence in majority of cases and some women reported the involvement of their husbands’ parents. Studies show that various acts of violence continued among a majority of the women who reported violence.

Much of the marital abuse that women suffer frequently occurs in the first few years of marriage. Given the early average age at marriage in much of South Asia, this finding means that a great deal of this violence is experienced by married adolescents, who may be more powerless than older married women to defend themselves (Solotaroff and Pande 2014).

Adolescent wives (13–19 years) are most vulnerable, reporting the highest rates of marital sexual violence of any age group. Adolescent girls also account for 24% of rape cases in the country, although they represent only 9% of the total female population.

Raghav Gaiha

The consequences of domestic violence are grave and intergenerational: physical trauma, repeated physical assaults result in chronic disease (e.g. chronic pain); acute neurological (e.g. fainting) and cardiopulmonary (hypertension) symptoms; lifestyle risk behaviours (substance misuse); psychiatric disorders (depression); and children and adolescents adversely affected by witnessing domestic violence (post-traumatic stress disorder). Besides, domestic violence also results in malnutrition among women and children.

Sen (2015) has emphasised that rape and other serious crimes against women are closely intertwined with inefficient policing and judicial systems, and callousness of society. Although the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013) provides for the death penalty to repeat offenders, often, many are let off the hook or roam free. In 2014, the launch of Rape Crisis Centres in every district in India was announced. But by 2015, this was reduced to just 36 centres. To date only 18 have been built, but even these centres are not functioning to their full capacity because of lack of personnel, infrastructure and convergence among different departments.

In a nuanced view based on recent evidence, Kulkarni et al (2014) argue that dominance and control over women are set in male attributes and behaviour (“masculinity”), regarded as a shared social ideal. Violence is not necessarily a part of masculinity, but the two are often closely linked, mediated by class, caste and religion.

Interventions that address masculinity seem to be more effective than those that ignore the powerful influence of gender norms and systems of inequality.

In conclusion, while the rapidly growing menace of sexual violence is scary and abhorrent, the challenges of judiciary and police reforms, and curbing of bestial masculinity are daunting.

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By Geetika Dang, Vani S. Kulkarni and Raghav Gaiha
Nov 17 2016 (The Hindu)

If we go by the National Crime Records Bureau reports, incidence of serious crimes against women rose from 237 per day in 2001 to 313 per day in 2015. These crimes include rape, kidnapping and abduction, dowry deaths and cruelty by husbands and relatives. Minor girls, adolescent and old women are frequently victims of brutal rapes and murders. Of these crimes, 30 per cent were rapes (including intent to rape). Higher incidence of crimes during 2001-2015 coupled with low conviction rate of 21 per cent of cases reported suggests that women are more vulnerable to serious crimes.

“The three worst States in incidence of crimes in 2001—Delhi, Haryana and Assam—remained largely unchanged in 2015.” A scene in Delhi. PHOTO: RAMESH SHARMA

There are huge gaps in incidence of crimes between the three worst and the three best States. The three worst States in 2001 — Delhi, Haryana and Assam — remained largely unchanged in 2015, with Assam replacing Haryana as the second worst State. The best performers, however, changed during this period. Nagaland, Meghalaya, and Sikkim displayed the lowest incidence of crimes in 2001 but the top two were replaced by Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in 2015. However, across States, the overall concentration of serious crimes did not change significantly. For example, the three States (Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra) that accounted for 37 per cent of the crimes in 2001 were responsible for a slightly lower share of 34 per cent in 2015.

Factors behind inter-State variations

Here we focus on two related questions: (i) Why have crimes against women risen between 2001 and 2015? What are the factors associated with huge inter-State variation in these crimes in 2015? As answers to these questions lie in the interplay of affluence of a State, religion, demographics including female/male ratio, employment opportunities for women, their literacy, rural/urban population ratio, quality of governance in the State and media exposure, we carried out a detailed analysis that allows us to assess their individual and joint contributions to variation of serious crimes over time and across States.

Our analysis reveals the following effects. A 1 per cent increase in State GDP (per capita) is associated with a 0.42 per cent reduction in the incidence of serious crimes. It follows that greater affluence is accompanied by a reduction in such crimes. If alcoholism and substance abuse are lower among men, or if these addictions are better treated in more affluent States, sexual or physical assaults on women are less likely.

Another factor is the sex imbalance measured as the number of females per 1,000 males. The sex ratio norm is 950. India’s ratio was below this (944 in 2015). A one per cent increase in the sex ratio lowers serious crimes against women by 8 per cent. Indeed, a skewed sex rationmore than undermines the affluence effect. So, if Delhi and Haryana continue to be the worst States despite being affluent (relative to, say, Andhra Pradesh), it is largely because of the abysmally low sex ratio in these two States. While the sex ratio increased in several States but remained low (Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan), in others (Bihar, Maharashtra) it remained low and barely changed.

Other influential factors include female literacy and labour force participation. Female bargaining power depends on both their literacy and outside employment. However, the evidence also suggests a backlash in which male spouses — especially those who are unemployed — assert their superiority by retaliatory physical and sexual violence. Our analysis points to a favourable joint effect of female literacy and labour force participation, though the positive individual effects of female literacy and labour force participation are larger. If brutality in marriage becomes unbearable, exit options for women who are both literate and employed become more viable for them. Promoting both jointly is likely to be more effective in curbing domestic violence against women.

A somewhat surprising finding is that the higher the rural/urban population, the higher the incidence of serious crimes against women. A one per cent decline in the rural/urban population ratio is associated with a reduction of 0.4 per cent in the incidence of such crimes. Even though such crimes in urban areas have greater visibility in the media, the grim reality is that women in rural areas are more vulnerable. Despite likely under-reporting of such crimes, it is revealing that rural women more often seek remedial action against them. This, of course, doesn’t imply that they are more likely to succeed.

Although cultural norms and context take diverse forms — whether, for example, it is a matriarchal or patriarchal society — religion is one key dimension. Classifying the populations into Hindus and Muslims, we find that in both groups women are vulnerable to serious crimes but more so among the former. A one per cent increase in the share of the Hindus increases such crimes by 1.64 per cent — double the incidence among Muslims. That a greater frequency of wife-beating and dowry-related violence among Hindus — in extreme cases “bride burning” — still persists is worrying.

Exposure to media — captured through readership of newspapers in English and major Indian languages — has two effects: one is better reporting of crimes and perhaps, more importantly, a crime deterrence effect. It is difficult to separate the two and so the combined effect is that a one per cent increase in readership is associated with a 1.9 per cent reduction in such crimes. The Delhi gang rape case of 2012, for example, wouldn’t have sparked a national uproar and led to the speedy arrest of the perpetrators without sustained media activism.

Governance, a key determinant

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has emphasised that rape and other serious crimes against women are closely intertwined with inefficient policing and judicial systems, and callousness of society. So the quality of governance in States is key to understanding the huge variation in incidence of serious crimes against women. In a recent but ambitious study this year led by economist Sudipto Mundle, 19 States have been ranked on the basis of a composite indicator of governance in 2001 and 2012. This indicator combines five criteria — infrastructure, social services, fiscal performance, justice, law and order, and quality of the legislature. Even if some State rankings are intriguing because of the failure to take into account rampant political corruption, it is significant that the best five and the worst five performers remained largely unchanged during 2001-2012. Subject to this caveat and the fact that 2015 is not covered, using this measure of governance, we find that the incidence of serious crimes against women declines with better governance.

In conclusion, if the crimes against women rose despite greater affluence and a slight increase in the sex ratio during 2001-15, the answer must lie in likely deterioration of governance and persistence of low sex ratios in certain States. Illustrative cases include Bihar, Delhi and Maharashtra.

Geetika Dang is an independent researcher; Vani S. Kulkarni is with the Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania; Raghav Gaiha, is with the Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard School of Public Health & Global Development Institute, University of Manchester.

This story was originally published by THE HINDU, India

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