Rape and red tape: Can new law help victims?

LIVING WITH TRAUMA: Iris (name changed) was forced to marry the man who raped her.

          

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It’s a news item that has started to appear with a worrying regularity — women being assaulted or raped across India. In Delhi itself, as many as 10 cases of rape were reported in the last month alone.

It is this 700 per cent increase in reported rape cases over the last five decades that has got the government thinking. So a new law, already approved of by the cabinet is on the anvil. Here are some of the fine points of those amendments proposed in the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC):

• Woman judge to hear rape cases, as far as practicable

• Trial to end within three months

• Investigation of case preferably at victim's residence

• Investigation preferably by a woman police officer

• Questioning of victim in presence of her parents or a social worker

• Recording victim statements at places of their choice

• Ban on publication of trial proceedings in rape cases

• Compensation to victims or dependents who have suffered loss or injury as a result of crime

However, the question remains if the new amendments will ensure faster justice for the victims or not.

Iris (name changed to protect identity) was raped there years ago. The police first refused to lodge her FIR and when they finally did, no medical tests were ordered. Instead, in a misguided attempt at justice, they got her married to her rapist.

“I was forced to marry the man who raped me. My life had already been ruined and I did not know what to do with it. Ultimately, I had to give into the pressure and married the man who had brought about my ruin. People were not willing to help me but forcing me to marry,” she says.

That was three years ago. The new amendments appear to be a step in the right direction, but can they really ensure effective quick justice?

Senior lawyer Indira Jaising points out that the new amendments are not as airtight as they seem.

“The very language that has been used, ‘as far as practicable,’ gives away the whole story,” she says.

She says there is an “underfunding” of courts dealing with crimes against women. “There is not sufficient attention devoted to the nature of the problem and of course the pressing need to ensure speed. Even for things like maintenance, I’ve known cases to be adjourned one and half years at a time,” she says.

“We have not seen,” she adds, “any increase in the number of courts. We have not seen any courts for dealing with these issues.”

It is not just the entire ordeal of going through various court procedures though. The first point of contact of authority for the victim, that is, the police station, at times, proves to be biggest hurdle in the way of getting justice.

Like Iris, there are probably scores of other victims, who had to go through that phase in order to get justice.

“I went to the police station several times but no one was willing to help me. I would go there in the morning and wait till evening, I cried and wailed and only then they lodged my FIR,” she says.

An analysis of rape cases in 2007 by Delhi Police said 68 per cent of rape accused were illiterate while 24 per cent studied up to Class X. About 80 per cent of the accused belong to the poor strata. Do our law enforcement agencies look at rape as a class-biased activity?

Jaising argues it is not happening within a certain class, however, adds that it is also true that for a poor woman, a rape is, at times, considered as an “occupational hazard.”