On 16 December 2012 Indian Society was shaken up by the brutal incident of Nirbhaya, which made Sexual offence a prime subject of public discourse and protest. The people of all age groups were on road. Suddenly people started dreaming of the solution of sexual offence, but after five years, we are still on the same platform. Even today, the incidences of rape are reported everyday in daily news papers and the electronic media forcing us to introspect our failure.
All major reforms have three major components — empowerment, social initiative and accountability. Empowerment promotes the participation of the people as active stakeholders to amend the policies/Acts or their better implement, while accountability improves the functioning of Public institutions and structures to implement the rights and to justify the quality and quantity of their implementation. Whereas initiative act as catalyst in the process by sensitizing the Society.
When society demands for new Acts or amendments in the existing act, it’s a process of inviting government to regulate the society. But in the process we just forget that the same government and administration has failed to implement the existing policies and Acts, which had resulted in the incidents like Nirbhaya.
The demand of the time was sensitization and social reform, taking forward the public discourse up to attitudinal changes, removing stigma of surviours, better understanding of gender and sexuality alongwith judiciary and police reform. Society was expected to question the government for non implementation of the existing provisions and systems but the society lost the battle by focusing only on legal reforms.
The issues of managing sexual stimulation and sexual frustration are yet to become part of our intervention, which are major factors of sexual assault along with gender discrimination.
We have mastered the skills of promising and making Act/policies. It provides instant oppourtunity for celebration, but without accountability we can’t get suitable impact. Protection of Children from Sexual offence Act (POCSO) was enacted in June 2012. But still the incidents of sexual offence even of children of three to six years are very common. Acts may contribute in prevention only when it is enacted properly; otherwise it desensitizes the offenders and quashes the fear of law.
In 2015 total cases registered under POCSO act in India were 14913. Instead of provision of completing the cases within a year only in 2501 cases trial was completed and in 1072 cases perpetrators were convicted. Such conviction rate added with social stigma associated with rape further limits the reporting rate.
Nirbhaya incidence was also followed by following promises and initiatives:
(The author is a Rehabilitation professional and has also managed Women Helpline, Chilldine and Family Counselling Centre in the City. The views expressed in the article are his own.)