NEW DELHI, Dec 14 (IPS) – A set of three bills introduced in India’s parliament in August to replace archaic colonial-era laws and revamp the criminal justice system will, however, retain the existing law legalizing marital rape .
Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), originally introduced in 1860, criminalized rape but made an exception for ‘sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the woman being not less than fifteen years of age’.
Women’s groups and civil society organizations fighting for gender justice cite the persistence of marital rape laws almost eighty years after independence from British colonial rule as an example of the difficulties in bringing about change in the extremely patriarchal attitudes that plague the Penetrate South Asian countries.
Nawmi Naz Choudhary, global legal counsel for Equality Now (EN), a group that strives to create a just and equal world for women and girls through legal expertise, advocacy, collaboration and resources, says the impact of colonization has led to many discriminatory police practices that deny women and girls access to justice, especially those from socially excluded or disadvantaged communities.
Such practices deter women and girls from seeking justice for sexual violence, and in cases where they do, the negligence or lack of proactiveness of police when it comes to crimes of sexual violence is linked to the reasons underlying colonial status maintain the quo, Choudhury tells IPS.
Research by EN and partners has found that sexual violence laws in many countries in the region effectively deny justice to survivors of sexual violence due to gaps in the laws’ protections, such as the “inability to fully address marital or intimate partner rape.” to criminalize.”
Other gaps reduce protections against sexual violence for young and adolescent girls and allow perpetrators of rape to be tolerated under certain circumstances – usually through marriage to the victim or obtaining forgiveness from the victim, Choudhury says. “In countries where these gaps in protection exist, access to legal aid for women and girls seeking justice for sexual violence is hampered.”
Choudhury highlighted the legal gaps in the region and provided background on legal aid services and facilities in the region during a webinar titled ‘Future of Legal Aid in South Asia for Sexual Violence against Women and Girls: Lessons from the Past Five Years.’
Citing a 2021 WHO report, Choudhury said one in three women have experienced physical or sexual intimate partner or non-partner violence in their lifetime. In South Asia, that figure rises to every second woman experiencing violence every day.
“What we see across the region is a criminal justice system characterized by failed implementations that lead to shortcomings in providing timely assistance to victims of sexual violence,” Choudhury told webinar participants.
“How much support do women and girls receive in South Asia?” she asked. “As they access the criminal justice system, they face indifference and neglect at all levels, often resulting in cases being withdrawn or long delays in adjudication – despite the pervasiveness of sexual violence in the region.”
She pointed out the high level of stigma attached to rape in South Asian societies, which often leads to non-reporting or withdrawal of cases or settlements outside of court. Other factors that hinder reporting of sexual violence include fear of repercussions, such as violence, threats to life or social exclusion.
Governments in the area rarely provide psychosocial care. While India, Nepal and Sri Lanka have schemes for payment of compensation to rape survivors, practical barriers often make compensation inaccessible to survivors, Choudhury said.
Webinar participants from various countries in the region offered insights into how access to justice functions at a practical level and the methods through which civil society organizations are pushing the criminal justice system to bring about progressive change to take.
Sushama Gautam of the Forum for Women, Law, and Development in Nepal said the legal aid provided by her organization went beyond assisting individuals and also included advocacy with key players and institutions such as the police and the courts through lawsuits in the public interest.
A major achievement of the Forum was filing public interest lawsuits in 2001 to get the Supreme Court of Nepal to declare in 2002 that sex within marriage without the woman’s consent should be considered rape. Nepal’s parliament passed a new penal code in 2018 that toughens penalties for marital rape but makes it a lesser crime than rape outside marriage.
“The national legal aid policy and the uniform legal aid policy have also been formulated. This policy promotes victim-centred legal aid and there are digital mechanisms in place to ensure legal aid is provided,” she said. The forum has an app through which you can contact legal counsel, and we use it to disseminate information,” Gautam said.
The Forum also has a Legal Clinic and Information Center that provides services to victims of sexual violence, such as legal advice, as well as the immediate needs of victims.
Manisha Biswas, senior advocacy officer at the Bangladesh Legal Aid Services Trust (BLAST), says that while Bangladesh has made progress in ensuring access to justice for rape victims, estimates show that only one in 90 cases of sexual assault violence actually reaches the stage where the victim receives compensation.
As leader of the Rape Law Reform Coalition, made up of 17 rights organizations, BLAST was instrumental in getting Bangladesh’s parliament to change evidence laws to ban “character assassination” of rape victims through interrogation during prosecution.
BLAST helps in the legal handling of child marriage cases through a network of legal assistants, many of whom are recruited from various courts.
“BLAST enjoys a good reputation that helps us act as a leading force and use our expertise in providing services such as training paralegal volunteers in police and judicial procedures and in proactively rehabilitating rape victims,” she said.
Much remains to be done, Biswas said. Bangladesh has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world, with more than half of women marrying before they reach the legal minimum age of marriage of 18. Bangladeshi law also allows marital rape.
Overall, Choudhury says, the reality in South Asia is that “the burden of supporting survivors of sexual violence falls on the shoulders of underfunded NGOs, mainly legal aid organizations that may not be adequately resourced.”
This is particularly true for NGOs and civil society organizations operating at grassroots level, which impacts access to justice for women and girls with disabilities, indigenous women and girls, and women and girls from minority or marginalized and disadvantaged communities.”
One of the key messages to emerge from the webinar, Choudhury said, is the need for greater collaboration so that all relevant stakeholders are involved in the fight to end sexual violence for all women and girls in the region.
IPS UN office report
Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram
© Inter Press Service (2023) — All rights reservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
