Violence Against Women (original) (raw)

2020, Har-Anand Publication Pvt. Ltd

Violence against women (VAW) is one of the most undesirable forms of human rights violation. Also understood as ‘Gender Based Violence’ (GBV) it is pervasive, often ‘tolerated’ as social phenomenon and creates a culture of ‘terror and silence.’ The issue is further complicated by its perceived linkages with family honour, dignity, respect and status of the family. It is this silence created by the entire experience of violence and with the fear of further violence that emboldens the perpetrators and normalizes violence in familial and gender relations. The gravity of this act is reflected in the global data by World Bank Report (2019) according to which violence against women affects one (1) in 3 in their life time. Further, 7% of women have been sexually assaulted by someone other than the partner; 38% of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner; 200 million have experienced female genital mutilation and, 35% have experienced physical or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence. This is not only traumatic for the survivors but also entails significant social and economic costs. A UN study on VAW in the family concludes that women in great numbers around the world are murdered, assaulted, sexually abused, threatened and humiliated within their own homes, by people known to them (Lina Gonslaves, 2001). VAW has been defined by UN to include “any act that results in or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty whether occurring in public or in private life”. In other words, any act which hurts or is likely to hurt the sentiments of the women whether in physical form or mentally, spiritually is form of violence. Also included under this definition is verbal abuse, like demeaning references to one’s dress, body, region and/or religion. This chapter on violence against women has been divided into five parts. Part I introduces the forms of violence against women in India; Part II gives the incidence of violence globally and history of global violence, Part III discusses the prevalence of gender-based violence in India followed by Impact of violence on women under Part IV, Way Forward as Part V and conclusion.