#indiawakeup – The First Step towards Justice is to Complaint

It’s cold winter morning of 2018. Mother returns home from work and to her horror, she sees her fragile innocent 8 months old daughter (we lovingly call her Choti) lying in a pool of blood.

Mother rushes with Choti to the hospital, where the doctors examine and confirm that Choti has been Raped.

What? Yes, you heard me right.

Rape of an 8 months old baby in the capital of our country – Delhi.

And yes, for all the Morale police out there, who are expert in blaming everything on woman and her clothes, our beloved Choti was well, in her Baby clothes.

As per Police investigation, Choti was RAPED by her 28 years old Cousin. Choti needs to undergo three surgeries in order to survive.

Nirbhaya was 22 when that ghastly incident took place in Delhi in Dec.2012, the first of a shocking and horrific incident put out in the media for a nation to wake up. Many a thing happened with law makers tightening their belts, the perpetrators given the death sentence and all because the youth participated in large numbers in rallies braving water cannons, lathi charge and many  other form of law enforcing to control the crowds that was shaken beyond disbelief.

This year again we had Gudiya, the 16 year old Himachal Pradesh school girl done in by eight individuals including a high ranking police official in similar fashion.

As ironic as it sounds, India is breaking new records every single day in Sexual Crimes against women.

“Age is just a number “- Our country seems to have taken this idiom way to seriously.

#Indiawakeup – It’s time to take away the power from the aggressors

Every year a mere 5-6% of the assaults are actually reported in India. As per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in 2016, a mere 6.1% i.e 36762 rape cases were reported.

Thus even today 95% of cases go unreported. For centuries, it has become part of our society to look down upon women who have been violated. It’s a taboo to speak about sexual crimes.

But at the same time, it’s equally true that India is constantly working towards Women Education and empowerment. Indian women are becoming aware of their rights and are fighting against all odds to speak up.

And yet, the number of cases which are registered have not increased substantially.

THE FIRST STEP IS TO COMPLAINT

Police, the Courts and the law comes in to picture only when the Victim files a complaint. But in 95% of the cases, it does not happen.

Out of the 36762 cases reported in 2016, in 34650 casesvictim knew the offender.

Thus, from looking at the cases which were reported, we can infer that in Ninety Four percent of the cases, offender was related to the victim. They could be a family member, teacher, colleague, neighbor and so forth.  The scenario remains the same even in the case of the balance 95% crimes which are not reported

In all other types of crimes, when victim knows the culprit, registering a complaint becomes easier. But the same does not apply in case of Sexual crimes.

In majority of the cases, the victim is emotionally tortured apart from the physical abuse.
And thanks to the emergence of Smart phones and social media, it has become all the more easier to blackmail the victim.

Victim is constantly under pressure to not register the complaint because if she does so, aggressors blackmail her by making the images and videos of the offence, public.

These images are often circulated on platforms such as Facebook, You tube, What’s app, Pornography sites. Since the circulation is widespread, it becomes all the more taxing for the victim to complaint against the aggressors.

Platforms like Facebook, Youtube do have certain mechanism to complaint against circulation of such content. But majority of the victims are not well equipped to reach out to these platforms in order to complain.

A much simpler solution to this problem would be to have a Single Point Legal Agency which acts as a mediator between the Public and these Websites wherein the victim and society at large can provide the Url / Link of the objectionable content to the Agency.

And this agency shall in turn co-ordinate with the respective websites to remove the content from complete circulation at the earliest.

This will have two fold benefits:

1. First, the victim can register case against the assaulters without fear of being publicly shamed.

The blackmailers will lose their power to traumatize the victim with emotional threats to publicly humiliate the victim.

With the support of National web agency, the victim, her family, friends can provide the details of the sites where such images are circulated and get them removed on priority basis.

This will allow even the mass public also to register complaint against any such objectionable content which they come across on any of the digital platforms.

       2. Police, on the other hand, will have easier access to the culprits by tracing their ip location.

Thus with a common platform in the form a National Web Agency, more Victims will gain strength to fight against the assaulters and will register the case against them.

When Women fight for their rights and no longer tolerate atrocities, when the assaulters are caught and culprits are punished, India will gradually become a safer and happier place to live.

We at Unnati Silks are proud of the fact that 75% of our workforce in the Online Division comprises of Women.

And this International Women’s Day we urge each of you to Wake Up and demand the Government to frame a National Web Agency which will help the victim to take her first step towards justice :

Her right to Complaint.

#Indiawakeup

Jai Hind

Priyanka Ladha
CEO
Online Division
Unnati Silks Group

 
Image Courtesy: Smita sharma/redux | Copyright Rupa Photography