THE ISSUE OF GENDER VIOLENCE IN INDIA

Submitted by:

ROHIT VARDHAN , B.A. LL.B. (Hons.)

(2762) Semester- 1ST
Submitted to:

Dr. Pratyush Kaushik, (Asst. Professor)

Legal Language and Communication Skills

This final draft of project on the afore-mentioned topic has been submitted in the partial
fulfilment of the B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) course in LEGAL LANGUAGE &
COMMUNICATION SKILLS

September, 2022

Chanakya National Law University, Patna.

1
 TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Sr TITLE Page
No. No.

Declaration 3

Acknowledgement 4

1 Introduction 5

2 Aims and Objectives 6

3 Hypotheses 6

4 Research Questions 6

5 Research Methodology 6

6 Sources of Data 7

7 Limitations of the study 7

8 Mode of Citation 7

9 Chapters 8-19
9.1 History of Women’s Movement in India
9.2 Forms of Gender Violence
9.3 Issues of Gender Violence in India
9.4 Development of Gender Violence & Provisions related to it

10 Conclusion 20

Bibliography 21

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DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the work reported in the B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) Project Report entitled
“THE ISSUE OF GENDER VIOLENCE IN INDIA” submitted at CHANAKYA
NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, PATNA is an authentic record of my work carried out
under the supervision of Dr. Pratyush Kaushik, Asst. Professor of Legal Language &
Communication Skills. I am fully responsible for the contents of my Project Report.

(Signature of the candidate)

Rohit Vardhan
Roll No: 2762 B.A. LL.B. (Hons.)
Semester- 1st
Chanakya National Law University, Patna

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

At this point of time, I would like to express my gratitude to all those who gave me their
support to complete this project.

I am grateful to my Legal Language & Communication Skills teacher who is Dr. Pratyush
Kaushik (Asst. Professor) for giving me permission to commence this project in the first
instance and to do necessary study and research. I want to thank law faculty members
and other faculty members for all their professional advice, value added time, effort and
enterprise help, support, interest and valuable hints that encouraged me to go ahead with
my project.

I am deeply indebted to my colleagues for their meticulous planning, layout, presentation

and above all for their consideration and time.

My heartfelt appreciation also goes to seniors and my classmate for their stimulating
suggestions and encouragement which helped me at each level of my research and in
writing of this project.

Especially, I would like to give my special thanks to my parents, family members and
God whose patient love enabled me to complete this project.

I have tried my best to enclose practical approach of Legal Language & Communication
Skills and also theoretical approach to my project.

Rohit Vardhan
Roll No: 2762 B.A. LL.B. (Hons.)
Semester- 1st
Chanakya National Law University, Patna

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 1. INTRODUCTION:

Female infanticide, a lady too scared to walk out of the house alone, girl child abuse, a women
terrified to voice her opinion, molestation at workplace, a girl committing suicide post dowry
harassment, females reluctant to travel by public transport, women scared to travel alone at
night all these instances have a common undertone.
We are discussing ‘Gender Violence’ here which is not just a term but has facets of agony
hidden beneath it. We see instances of gender-based violence all around us, whether it be at
home or outside. BBC quoted a year ago ‘About once every five minutes an incident of
domestic violence is reported in India.’ This is a matter of an utter dismay. On one hand we
say womanhood is to be respected and on other hand few elements in our society are tearing
that beauty and the soul apart.
Gender violence is a barrier to socio-economic growth. In a developing country like India
where the only criteria for development are GDP1 and welfare, it is sad to see that we are not
giving women that equal power and liberty to be financially independent and contribute
towards civic development.
Women in our society are bearing the burnt in some or the other form such as:
i. Physical Violence – Leading to injury, impairment, damage.
ii. Sexual Violence – Rape, molestation, forced marriage, abortion etc.
iii. Emotional Violence– Threats, harassment, acid attacks.
iv. Economic Violence – Limiting the access to basic needs, lack of health facility,
withholding monetary supply to name a few.
There are stratums where women are deprived of basic necessities, they are financially
dependent on their family and in few cases even their health and well-being are ignored.
According to WHO2 estimates, nearly 30% of all women who have ever lived in a relationship
have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner which further
resulted in violence from family
Twenty-four per cent of Indian men have committed sexual violence at some point in their
lives, 20% forced their partners to have sex with them, and only 17% of Indian men could be
considered ‘highly equitable’, reveals a survey of six developing countries. Spousal abuse is

1
Gross Domestic Product
2
World Health Organization

5
so well accepted and normalized in India that a majority of men feel wife-beating is okay. Low
levels of education clearly play a major role in this horrifying trend.

1. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES:

i. To ascertain gender violence persisting in our society.

ii. To highlight the history of women’s movement in India.
iii. To find out different types of gender violence and to put forth a way forward.

2. HYPOTHESES:

i. In India, it was recently largely because of the women's movements’ efforts that
violence against women was acknowledged as a serious problem.
ii. The argument that one person's irrational belief in the right to exercise power over
another person, interpersonal interactions, or interpersonal ties, is the origin of
domestic violence, as well as the socio-economic and political content of power
relations, is the foundation for gender violence.
iii. There are numerous ways that gender-based violence manifests. Women undergo
violence and prejudice based on their gender; some women even encounter many
forms of violence that overlap with one another.

3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

i. What exactly is gender violence?

ii. How women’s movement in India contributed to the acknowledgement of the
gender violence?
iii. What are the various forms of gender violence.

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 4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:

The researcher will limit his project on the Doctrinal method of research as the topic provides
limited scope for non-doctrinal and empirical research. The researcher will be using both
primary and secondary sources of data.

5. SOURCES OF DATA:

In this project of the said topic, the researcher has relied on secondary sources of data:

i. Articles
ii. Books
iii. Websites

6. LIMITATIONS OF STUDY:

The researcher had gone through the texts and referred to the sources available to him while
completing this project. Many doctrinal sources were beyond the access of the researcher too.
Furthermore, the topic had little scope of empirical study which added to limitation involved
in the making of this project.

7. MODE OF CITATION:

The researcher has hewn to Blue Book Citation (20th Edition) in this project report.

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 CHAPTERS
9.1 HISTORY OF WOMEN’S MOVEMENT IN INDIA

9.1.1 What is Gender Violence

CAPE uses the term "Gender Violence" as an umbrella term to talk about sexual assault,
relationship violence, stalking, and sexual harassment. Anyone can be a survivor of gender
violence regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, age, class, strength, size, appearance,
etc.
Gender violence includes rape, sexual assault, intimate partner violence in heterosexual and
same sex partnerships, sexual harassment, stalking, prostitution and sex trafficking. The term
"gender violence" reflects the idea that violence often serves to maintain structural gender
inequalities, and includes all types of violence against men, women, children, adolescents, gay,
transgender people and gender non-conforming. This type of violence in some way influences
or is influenced by gender relations. To adequately address this violence, we have to address
cultural issues that encourage violence as part of masculinity.

9.1.2 History of Women’s Movement in India:

Looking at the history of women empowerment movements one can identify some broad
trajectories: in the initial phases a number of women were organizing and mobilizing around
the globe for their rights. The development planners and policy makers in India did not have
any interaction with these groups and they considered feminism as irrelevant to development
and it was viewed as a luxury for the better of women in the industrialized countries. In this
phase development is seen as an administrative problem, whose solution lay in transferring
vast amount of resources and technological innovations from rich to poor countries. Eventually
there were efforts to integrate women in the developmental process, wherein Access to
Education and employment became the indicators of women’s involvement in the development
process, but again under this phase a large chunk of rural women were purview of the
developmental process. But today the question of development is being addressed from the
feminist perspective and concerns about issues like child care, Reproductive Category: Health,
violence against women, family planning, transfer of technology and rural development have
given the concept of development a new meaning. If development leads only to an increase in

8
production, then it consequentially tends to reinforce and exaggerate the imbalances and
inequalities within and in between societies. Development has to be an integral process with
economic, social and cultural aspects of an individual’s life, enabling them to the take control
of their life situation; herein comes the concept of empowerment.

9.2 FORMS OF GENDER VIOLENCE

Gender-based violence is enacted under many different manifestations, from its most
widespread form, intimate partner violence, to acts of violence carried out in online spaces.
These different forms are not mutually exclusive and multiple incidences of violence can be
happening at once and reinforcing each other. Inequalities experienced by a person related to
their race, disability, age, social class, religion, sexuality can also drive acts of violence. This
means that while women face violence and discrimination based on gender, some women
experience multiple and interlocking forms of violence.
Various forms are:

9.2.1 Physical Violence

Physical injury is the most visible form of domestic violence. The scope of physical
domestic/intimate partner violence includes slapping, pushing, kicking, biting, hitting,
throwing objects, strangling, beating, threatening with any form of weapon, or using a
weapon. Worldwide, the percentage of women who suffer serious injuries as a result of
physical domestic violence tends to range from 19% - 55%. Physical injuries as a result of
domestic violence against women are more obvious than psychological ones, and can be more
easily discerned by health professionals as well as courts of law in the context of legal
prosecution.

9.2.2 Emotional Abuse

Emotional abuse has been gaining more and more recognition in recent years as an incredibly
common form of domestic violence (and therefore a human rights abuse) within the private
home throughout developing nations such as India. Psychological abuse can erode a woman’s

9
sense of self-worth and can be incredibly harmful to overall mental and physical wellbeing.
Emotional/psychological abuse can include harassment; threats; verbal abuse such as name-
calling, degradation and blaming; stalking; and isolation.

Women who experience domestic violence overwhelmingly tend to have greater overall
emotional distress, as well as disturbingly high occurrences of suicidal thoughts and attempts.
According to a study by the National Centre for Biotechnology Information, suicide attempts
in India are correlated with physical and psychological intimate partner violence. Of the Indian
women who participated in the study, 7.5% reported attempting suicide. This correlation is
supported by the high rates of domestic violence in India, although the rates differ greatly by
region, individual socioeconomic status and other factors.

9.2.3 Sexual Assault

Domestic sexual assault is a form of domestic violence involving sexual/reproductive coercion

and marital rape. Under Indian law, marital rape is not a crime, except during the period of
marital separation of the partners.

The Section 375 of the IPC3 considers the forced sex in marriages as a crime only when the
wife is below 15. Thus, marital rape is not a criminal offense under IPC. The marital rape
victims have to take recourse to the PWDVA4 2005.The PWDVA, which came into force in
2006, outlaws marital rape. However, it offers only a civil remedy for the offence.

9.2.4 Honor Killing

An honor killing is the practice wherein an individual is killed by one or more family members,
because he or she is believed to have brought shame on the family. The shame may range from
refusing to enter an arranged marriage, having sex outside marriage, being in a relationship that
is disapproved by the family, starting a divorce proceeding, or engaging in homosexual
relations. In 2010, the SC5 of India issued notice seeking data and explanation for rise in honour

3
Indian Penal Code
4
Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act
5
Supreme Court

10
killings to the states of Punjab, Haryana, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Himachal
Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

9.2.5 Dowry-related abuse and death

In almost all the Hindu families the ritual of taking dowry has caused a serious problem in the
society. Some newly married brides suffer domestic violence in the form of harassment,
physical abuse or death when she is thought to have not brought enough dowry with marriage.
Some cases end up in suicides by hanging, self-poisoning or by fire. In dowry deaths, the
groom’s family is the perpetrator of murder or suicide. According to Indian NCRB6, in 2012,
8,233 dowry death cases were reported across India, or dowry issues cause 1.4 deaths per year
per 100,000 women in India. For contextual reference, the United Nations reports a worldwide
average female homicide rate of 3.6 per 100,000 women, and an average of 1.6 homicides per
100,000 women for Northern Europe in 2012.

Dowry deaths in India is not limited to any specific religion, and it is found among Hindus,
Muslims, Sikhs and others. Some 80% of the total Dowry related crime found in the Hindu
community followed by other Indian Religions as giving Dowry is considered as an important
ritual in the Traditional Hindu Marriage. Furthermore in many parts of India the Ritual of
‘Tilak’7 done mostly in Hindu families is used by Groom's Family to Demand a huge sum of
money.

The Dowry Prohibition Act8, prohibits the request, payment or acceptance of a dowry, "as
consideration for the marriage", where "dowry" is defined as a gift demanded or given as a
precondition for a marriage. Gifts given without a precondition are not considered dowry, and
are legal. Asking or giving of dowry can be punished by an imprisonment of up to six months,
or a fine. It replaced several pieces of anti-dowry legislation that had been enacted by various
Indian states. Murder and suicide under compulsion are addressed by India's criminal penal
code. The law was made more stringent with Section 498a of Indian Penal Code9. Under the

6
National Crime Record Bureau
7
Also known as engagement
8
1961
9
(enacted in 1983)

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Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 , a woman can seek help against
dowry harassment by approaching a domestic violence protection officer.

9.2.6 Acid Throwing

This is also called acid attack, or vitriol age10, is defined as the act of throwing acid onto the
body of a person "with the intention of injuring or disfiguring them out of jealousy or revenge".
The most common types of acid used in these attacks are sulfuric, nitric, or hydrochloric acid.
Perpetrators of these attacks throw acid at their victims, usually at their faces, burning them,
and damaging skin tissue, often exposing and sometimes dissolving the bones. The long term
consequences of these attacks include blindness and permanent scarring of the face and body.
Women and girls are the victims in 75-80% of cases. Acid attacks are often connected to
domestic disputes, including dowry disputes, and refusal of a proposition for marriage, or of
sexual advances. Such attacks are common in South Asia, in countries such as Bangladesh,
Pakistan, India; and in Southeast Asia, especially in Cambodia.

9.2.6 Stalking

It is unwanted or obsessive attention by an individual or group toward another person, often

manifested through persistent harassment, intimidation, or following/monitoring of the victim.
Stalking is often understood as "course of conduct directed at a specific person that would
cause a reasonable person to feel fear". Although stalkers are frequently portrayed as being
strangers, they are most often known people, such as former or current partners, friends,
colleagues or acquaintances.

There are other more various forms of Gender Violence worldwide.

10
Acid Attack

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9.2.7 Domestic Violence against Women:

This form of domestic violence is most common of all. One of the reasons for it being so
prevalent is the orthodox and idiotic mindset of the society that women are physically and
emotionally weaker than the males. Though women today have proved themselves in almost
every field of life affirming that they are no less than men, the reports of violence against them
are much larger in number than against men. The possible reasons are many and are diversified
over the length and breadth of the country. According to United Nation Population Fund
Report, around two-third of married Indian women are victims of domestic violence and as
many as 70 per cent of married women in India between the age of 15 and 49 are victims of
beating, rape or forced sex. In India, more than 55 percent of the women suffer from domestic
violence, especially in the states of Bihar, U.P., M.P. and other northern states.

The most common causes for women stalking and battering include dissatisfaction with the
dowry and exploiting women for more of it, arguing with the partner, refusing to have sex with
him, neglecting children, going out of home without telling the partner, not cooking properly
or on time, indulging in extra marital affairs, not looking after in-laws etc. In some cases
infertility in females also leads to their assault by the family members. The greed for dowry,
desire for a male child and alcoholism of the spouse are major factors of domestic violence
against women in rural areas. There have been gruesome reports of young bride being burnt
alive or subjected to continuous harassment for not bringing home the amount of demanded
dowry. Women in India also admit to hitting or beating because of their suspicion about the
husband’s sexual involvement with other women. The Tandoor Murder Case of ‘Naina Sahni’11
is one such dreadful incident of a woman being killed and then burnt in a Tandoor by his
husband. This incidence was an outcome of suspicion of extra marital affairs of Naina Sahni
which led to marital discord and domestic violence against her.

In urban areas there are many more factors which lead to differences in the beginning and later
take the shape of domestic violence. These include- more income of a working woman than
her partner, her absence in the house till late night, abusing and neglecting in-laws, being more
forward socially etc. Working women are quite often subjected to assaults and coercion sex by

11
1995 New Delhi.

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employees of the organization. At times, it could be voluntary for a better pay and designation
in the office.

Violence against young widows has also been on a rise in India. Most often they are cursed for
their husband’s death and are deprived of proper food and clothing. They are not allowed or
encouraged for remarriage in most of the homes, especially in rural areas. There have been
cases of molestation and rape attempts of women by other family members in nuclear families
or someone in the neighbourhood. At times, women are even sexually coerced by their partner
themselves against their will. They are brutally beaten and tortured for not conceiving a male
child. Incidents like, ripping off a woman’s womb for killing the female foetus when she
disagrees for abortion have also come to light especially in rural areas. Female foeticide and
female infanticide continue to be a rising concern.

Also as expressed by Rebecca J. Burns in the following lines, “When I am asked why a woman
doesn’t leave abuser I say: Women stay because the fear of leaving is greater than the fear of
staying. They will leave when the fear of staying is greater than the fear of leaving.” A common
Indian house wife has a tendency to bear the harassment she is subjected to by her husband and
the family. One reason could be to prevent the children from undergoing the hardships if she
separates from the spouse. Also the traditional and orthodox mindset makes them bear the
sufferings without any protest.

Other forms of physical abuse against women include slapping, punching, grabbing, burdening
them with drudgery, public humiliation and the neglect of their health problems. Some of the
other forms of psychological torment against them could be curtailment of their rights to self-
expression and curbing the freedom to associate with the natal family and friends.

9.2.8 Domestic Violence against Men:

There is no question that domestic violence directed against women is a serious and bigger
problem, but domestic violence against men is also increasing gradually in India. The
supremacy of men in the society makes one believe that they are not vulnerable to domestic
violence. Battering of men by their spouse and family members has become a concerned issue
and is another form of domestic violence under purview of judiciary. In India, compared to

14
violence against women, violence against men is less frequent but it has already taken a deadly
shape in many of the western countries by now.
Males have reported incidences of assault against them like pushing, shoving, slapping,
grabbing, hitting which are intended to harm them and also take their lives on many occasions.
Recently, hundreds of husbands gathered in Chandigarh and Shimla to voice their opinion for
men’s rights and protection against domestic violence subjected to them by their wives and
other family members. It reflects the need for a special law for curbing domestic violence
against men in present times.
If we contemplate over the reasons behind this form of domestic violence we would find some
of the possible causes such as not abiding by the instructions of the wives’, inadequate earning
of men, infidelity towards wives, not helping the partner in household activities, not taking a
proper care of children, abusing the spouse’s family, infertility of men, spying the activities of
partner, doubting the partner all the time and not trusting her, revolt by the wife when asked to
look after in-laws etc. On many occasions, the spat between men and women becomes public
thereby influencing the society around especially in the villages. In urban areas such forms of
violence may go unreported because of greater privacy. Also the families find their reputation
at stake in urban areas.
Babu et al. surveyed both genders on domestic violence in eastern region of India. The results
show that 16% of women had reported experiencing physical forms of domestic violence, 25%
sexual form, 52% psychological, and 56% reported any form of domestic violence. Men
reported being perpetrators of domestic violence with 22% reporting some form of physical
domestic abuse, 17% sexual, 59% psychological, and 59.5% any form of domestic abuse. Men
reported experiencing higher prevalence of all forms of violence, but reported experiencing
lowest rates of sexual violence. The perpetrator of domestic violence, physical or sexual or
psychological, was typically the husband in majority of cases and in some cases husbands
parents. Further, low income and low education increased the risks of domestic violence.

9.2.9 Other Forms of Domestic Violence in India

There are some more possible forms of domestic violence prevalent in India other than the ones
listed above. On a serious note, family wars or clan wars are deadly forms of domestic violence
across the country. The reason of such type of violence include dispute over property,
physically or emotionally abusing any member of other family or clan, any religious cause or
conflict arising during a religious ceremony, jealousy because of progress and financial status

15
of other family, inter-caste marriage etc. This form of violence is common in many states like
Haryana, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh etc.
One of the other forms of domestic violence is ill-treatment of servants and maids in
households. In many of the affluent homes, servants are deprived of their salary and basic
necessities. They are harassed and beaten and to work without even taking adequate rest.
Similarly maids are molested by males in the family. Atrocities against small children working
as servants are common and increasing.
To some extent media is also responsible for contributing to all the above forms of violence.
The exaggerated news coverage of reports of domestic violence, the daily soaps screening the
torture of a daughter-in-law at the hands of family members, the films portraying an element
of violence against people of all age groups etc. are some of the menaces which media is
causing. It is influencing the mindset of the viewers strongly. The problem arises when instead
of taking a lesson from those news clippings, films, and television shows, people start enacting
the same in their homes. Comparatively, the visual media is far more influencing than the print
and electronic media in these cases. Illiteracy and mob mentality of majority of Indians
misguides them in all these cases.

9.3 ISSUES OF GENDER VIOLENCE IN INDIA

A major issue that haunts the process of development and empowerment in India is the issue
of Gender violence. The many forms of violence against women and girl children are to be
understood as gender violence. Only when we look at violence not as a private issue but a
developmental and human rights issue, that we will be able to see the question in its totality.
Violence has an economic, social and political cost to society and is not a private affair. Gender
violence is rooted in the theory that the cause of domestic violence is one person’s arbitrary
belief in the right to exert power over another person, interpersonal interactions or interpersonal
relations and is situated in the socio-economic and political content of power relations.

In South Asia , in the absence of State support structures, family is a group that one looks to
for love, gentleness and solidarity, yet it is one of the very few groups which uses physical
force leading to the increasing problem of violence in our society. It is well known that as
bonds of tradition weaken with modernization, gender violence within families tends to

16
increase. Domestic violence is not unique to India, nor is it a recent phenomenon. But in India
what is unusual is the resistance to its elimination by society at large and society’s lack of
recognition of it as a serious issue. What is recent however is the courage of women to face up
to domestic violence- not just women in organized groups but also female victims who are well
aware of the adverse consequences that “going public” will have on their lives. With the
backdrop of the patriarchal social structure, the tradition of familial piety and the asymmetrical
gender expectations in India, this defiant movement to expose domestic violence has created
the space for a national debate on the issue.

In India, in the recent past, it has been primarily due to the efforts of the Women’s movement
that violence against women was recognized as an issue meriting serious concern. Towards
Equality, Report of 1974, this sharply highlighted the abysmal low status of women in modern
India, and focused attention on the fact that despite many progressive social legislation’s and
constitutional guarantees, women’s status had not improved much.12 However, this report did
not include violence as an important issue in its discussion on the status of women. It was only
in 1995, the Indian Government had recognized violence against women as one of the eleven
critical areas of concern.
Gender violence is rooted in the theory that the cause of domestic violence is one person’s
arbitrary belief in the right to exert power over another person, interpersonal interactions or
interpersonal relations and is situated in the socio-economic and political content of power
relations. In Indian families, most of the working class women, even while facing violence,
also face the trivializing of this reality in their lives. Middle class women face another kind of
censoring of the violence that they face within homes. The public private divide which operates
very strongly in many middle class women’s lives do not allow them to speak about the
humiliation and violence they undergo. Both these trivializing as well as silencing are political
acts which support a structure of oppression of women. Girls who observe domestic violence
are more likely to tolerate abusive partners as adults, thus subjecting another generation to the
same sad dynamics. The wife’s tolerance is explained in terms of traditional socialization or
learned helplessness. Women tend to be the peacemakers on relationships, the ones responsible
for making the marriage work.

12
(Towards Equality Report, 1974).

17
 9.4DEVELOPMENTS OF GENDER VIOLENCE
AND PROVISIONS RELATED TO IT

Traditionally violence against women was considered women’s issue to be addressed through
counselling, legal aid and organizing women’s shelters. However, the issue came into sharp
focus in the 1980’s with the widespread coverage by the mass media of growing incidents of
torture of brides, of dowry deaths and of the localized populous protests against these heinous
crimes. The campaigns by women and the slogan that, “A suicide in the family is murder”, has
brought about a change in the Indian Penal Code through Section 498 A13, and for the first time
criminalized domestic violence and created a much needed space for a distressed women facing
violence in her marital home. The agitation against liquor in Andhra Pradesh also brought in
the issue of violence in the public realm. There has now increasingly been a feeling that
definition of violence only as physical acts of aggression are inadequate. The understanding of
violence has to incorporate the imperceptible psychological unseen day to day violence
perpetrated within the families through cultural, religious practices, inter personal,
interrelationships, language, gesture and socialization.

Despite the growing interest and recognition of the issue of domestic violence there is a dearth
of literature on domestic violence in India. We do not have much data on domestic violence
except few qualitative studies of a very small sample. Three studies from Gujarat, Madhya
Pradesh and Maharashtra and Karnataka have clearly shown that domestic violence is an all-
pervasive phenomenon in India. It showed that violence cuts across caste, class, religion, age
and education. In spite of economic prosperity and high literacy rate two out of every five
wives experience physical abuse.

In Indian families, most of the working class women, even while facing violence, also face the
trivializing of this reality in their lives. Middle class women face another kind of censoring of
the violence that they face within homes. The public private divide which operates very
strongly in many middle class women’s lives does not allow them to speak about the
humiliation and violence they undergo. Both these trivializing as well as silencing are political
acts which support a structure of oppression of women .

13
“to protect married women from being subjected to cruelty by the husband or his relatives”

18
Girls who observe domestic violence are more likely to tolerate abusive partners as adults, thus
subjecting another generation to the same sad dynamics. The wife’s tolerance is explained in
terms of traditional socialization or learned helplessness. Women tend to be the peacemakers
in relationships, the ones responsible for making the marriage work.

19
 10. CONCLUSION & SUGGESTIONS

Gender violence remedies is that what exactly we are looking for in the process of minimising
their occurrences. Is it so that we want to gather more information about such cases for just
expressing our concern over this issue with more accuracy, having facts and figures at hand?
Or instead of just raising our voices, we want to clean up the mess with shear force and
determination?
The role of non-governmental organizations in controlling the domestic violence and curbing
its worse consequences is crucial. Sakshi14 in Delhi works on cases of sexual assault, sexual
harassment, child sexual abuse and domestic abuse and focuses on equality education for
judges and implementation of the 1997 Supreme Court’s sexual harassment guidelines.
Women’s Rights Initiative- another organization in the same city runs a legal aid cell for cases
of domestic abuse and works in collaboration with law enforcers in the area of domestic
violence.
Unfortunately, at present there is no single law in the Indian Constitution which can strictly
deal with all the different forms of ‘Domestic Violence’ as discussed in this research. There is
an urgent need for such a law in the country. In fact, there has also been misuse of section 498A
and DVA, 2005 because of restricted definition of cruelty subjected to married women.
Thus I would like to conclude and suggest that we can eliminate gender violence only if we
change the values of our society. We need to begin with the individual. Each individual must
make a pledge about his or her own immediate action in private as well as public life if age old
practices and values are to be changed.
There is a need to measure one’s masculinity in terms of equality. One can start at home by
teaching one’s son to fight against inequality and to teach the daughter to break the silence. In
this new millennium there is a need to move beyond the family. Supporting women’s efforts
and promoting men’s role in gender peace are important. A new approach is needed, one that
supports the family as an institution based on equality, love and respect rather than on power
and privilege for men and boys and weakness and subservience prescribed for women and girls.
Children both male and female should be raised by instituting qualities of tenderness and
nurturance as well as assertion. Only then will a healthy respect be ensured and gender violence
be eliminated.

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A violence intervention agency for women and children

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BIBLIOGRAPHY:

The following sources were referred to by the researcher in the making of this final draft of
the project:

i. WIKIGENDER, https://www.wikigender.org (last visited 04.09.2022)

ii. YOUTH KI AWAAZ, https://youthkiawaaz.com (last visited 04.09.2022)

iii. Gender-Based Violence: Perspectives from Africa, the Middle East, and India
edited by edited by Yanyi K. Djamba, Sitawa R. Kimuna.

iv. Feminist Counselling and Domestic Violence in India edited by Sangeeta

Rege, Padma Bhate-Deosthali, Padma Prakash.

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