Solutions to rising crimes against women & children.

The recent report by Praja highlights what has been suspected all along that crimes against women & children are treated casually.. This explains the fact, that, more than 90% cases are pending trials in courts.

Hence, conviction is less than 40 % .The reasons can be many. One major reason is shortage of manpower or rather human power. The highest shortage is in forensic laboratories where its 40%, followed by public prosecutors where its 28% shortage. Next is the police, where shortage of personnel is 18% & in sessions courts, the shortage is 14% .Even the Supreme Court & High Courts have vacancies & it takes years to fill up the vacancies. Obviously, all this affects deliverance of justice .And ,when ,at the grassroot level, there are vacancies at sessions courts, & amongst the police, the public prosecutors, & in the forensic laboratories, women & children continue to suffer as their lives are marred by violence.

Even in cases that needed to be tried under the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences ( POCSO) Act ,just about half of the cases have been tried in special courts as mandated under the POCSO  act. And only 44 out of a total 220 cases tried under POCSO reached the stage of judgement in 2019. In, 2020 , because of COVID, the situation has definitely worsened. All this will add to a huge backlog of cases in the future.

As per the National Judicial Data Grid ,the backlog of cases is a whooping 37.7 million ! This works out to 3.7 million cases pending for 10 years, Out of these 3.7 million cases, 2.8 million cases before the district courts & 0.92 million cases before the High Courts have remained pending. And that’s not all. Nearly, 6,60,000 cases have remained pending for more than two decades & another, 1,31,000 have remained unresolved for more than 30 years. All this adds to a huge economic cost. Moreover, delay in justice is as good as denial of justice.

Capital punishment or death penalty is an incorrect response to check crimes against women & children. Capital punishment is not a deterrent .It is an expensive process & since nearly 75 % of the accused on the death row are from the marginalised sections of society, it gets too exorbitant .And death penalty has not acted as a deterrent .If death penalty is the answer then murders should have stopped. And yet, murders continue. Capital punishment is like revenge & this has therefore no place in a civil society. And cases in which capital punishment is awarded take years to end. And this makes it a long & winding process. It is traumatic for the victim, their families & even for the accused & their families. .And where is the scope to correct if a person is given capital punishment & later its discovered that the accused who suffered the death penalty ,had not committed the alleged crime ?

Many states have brought in the death penalty in case of sexual assaults' of children below 12 years under POCSO. And the effect is ,that there are hardly any convictions. Because ,in most cases of sexual abuse of children , the accused   ( more than  90% ) are from the family and friends. And so the victim or survivor is pressurized to keep silent & not depose against the accused.

The pandemic has led to an exponential increase in cases of domestic violence .And even in such cases, it is  likely that the women who are the victims and survivors , will choose to remain silent .They would rather not speak up against their family members. So death penalty will make this complaining against family members nearly impossible.

Faster arrests , thorough investigation & fast tracking of cases  is needed to curb rising crimes against women & children. 

How can the pendency of cases involving women & kids be  brought down ? Obviously by decisions of the courts .And that can happen only when the courts function with full capacity. That means all vacancies need to be filled up. And this should include vacancies at the levels of judiciary, at the level of police , at the level of public prosecutors and also at the level of forensic laboratories. It's the entire gamut of the judicial system that needs to be covered.

Another step that needs to be taken is to fill up all the vacancies that exist across all the courts, from  the lowest till the highest levels. This will improve the judge to population ratio & help in brining down the backlog of cases. The Advocate General of India, Mr Venugopal recently told the Supreme Court that there is a lot of gender bias in the judiciary .He opined that as many as 50 % of judges need to be women to make it non biased.

A suggestion is to temporarily increase the number of lower courts by appointing willing law graduates as judges .Such temporary judges will be paid only salary .They will be ineligible for other benefits .And as soon as the backlog of cases end, these temporary  judges will be retired without any benefits. Of course, the most suitable of them can be absorbed into the judicial services after the requisite examinations & interviews & other relevant criteria. And mostly these temporary judges can be from women candidates. Even the courts which have to try POCSO cases can be headed majorly by women. Because women have a better understanding of children & their trauma. The temporary judges can try a majority of the cases dealing with women & children as women are better equipped to deal with such cases.

The Supreme Court guidelines as laid down in the Vishaka case  ( which dealt with sexual harassment at the workplace ) stated that the internal complaints committee in any organisation must be headed by  a woman .At least half of the members of this committee must be women. It follows therefore that women must have an equally importantly role to play in violent crimes affecting women & children

Similarly, other temporary posts can be created across the entire gamut of the criminal justice system whereby police personnel, the public prosecutors, the forensic team, can be majorly women. And these temporary posts can be ended once the pendency of cases gets back to manageable proportions. Here also, the most suitable ones can be absorbed into the permanent services through examinations, interviews & other relevant criteria. The Constitution of India allows reservation in favour of women & hence these judicial, police , public prosecution & forensic science jobs in favour of women are as per the Fundamental Right under Article 15 ( 3 ). 

Another  way to reduce the huge backlog of cases is to allow  the courts & other judicial & quasi judicial authorities to work in shifts.  In Maharashtra, the lower courts will be working in two shifts .And this, is indeed, the urgent need of the day. In fact, not just the lower courts, even the High Courts & Supreme Court need to work in shifts to clear the huge backlog of cases. If this happens, the backlog will end soon & then all courts can resume single shift working.

And as women get employed , the GDP of our country will rise by 27 % .Hence, employing women as judges, police personnel, public prosecutors & forensic scientists will be a WIN WIN situation for all !!! It will make the society safer for women & children as crimes are dealt with promptly & justice is delivered. Economy will improve & the backlog of cases will reduce.

And this is in accordance with India’s position on the international stage. India is signatory to the International Covenant on Civil & Political rights as also Convention for Elimination of Discrimination against Women .

And this pandemic has given us a chance to implement the aforesaid ideas ,  which can only lead us ahead in the direction of a better tomorrow !

Women during the Lockdown.

This blog post was published on Women's Web on 24th April , 2020 as a Featured Post.

India nah, the world is under lock down .And it has affected   in  myriad ways.And therefore it has obviously influenced  kids  and especially  women as well.

Since everybody has to stay safe by staying indoors at homes, the women of the hose is constantly on her toes.She cleans, cooks, cares, washes, etal. Yes, men do chip in and  help .And that is the bare minimum and  that too when asked specifically to do so.The kids in the house are no better and yet that's expected .Because, when they see their father and the men in the house laze around, they are going to follow the laid back attitude of the men.

Men seem to believe that while they slogged in offices during pre shutdown days, their wives would snap a finger and  housework would get done by itself. Yes, in the pre lockdown days, maids did a part of the housework  yet the lady of the house did have to do the remaining part . Men are therefore shocked that women physically do housework  ! That is ladies cook, clean, care, wash, etc with their hands , not by snapping fingers ! And since men are at home, they are expected to chip in too .As men pretend to be busy doing nothing, they have to be specially requested to do at least some task around the house. And then , the men do it in such a manner /s  that they are never ever asked again to help. A survey regarding the type and  quantity of housework done by Indian men is quite revealing . Just that this survey makes  it official ! More that 25% women feel that men do not do enough work at the home during shutdown. It follows that post shutdown, they will do no work around the house .And nearly 70% men did admit that housework is tougher than they believed it to be ! Corona lockdown  has led to enlightenment  ! Not that this enlightenment is going to reduce the burden of housework for ladies in any which way.

And in the midst of the lockdown , there are reports of increased domestic violence. Women are bearing the brunt of this violence followed by children. Many women have nowhere to go  and  no income of their own. Hence, they are forced to put up with the violent partners . And this lockdown has made it tougher. The men take out all their frustration on their partners as all are at home all the twenty four hours , day in and  day out.The National Commission for Women has been flooded with more than twice the number of complaints during the lockdown  as compared to those  filed before the shutdown.


The victims of domestic violence have been using email and  whatsapp texts or text messages to complain about domestic violence as talking on phone gets difficult if not impossible with the abuser being in close proximity. This is  different from the pre lockdown period when a majority of the complaints were through the phone calls.

The government has issued a warning  that domestic violence will be strictly handled.And yet,  with the police being overworked in handling lockdown, it may be difficult  for the police to deal with domestic violence. The NGOs working with the police can intervene in matters of domestic violence & ease the lives of women away from domestic violence.

Another downside of this stay at home has been a spike in the number of cases being filed for divorces. Rising divorces are mainly due to domestic violence as also economic downturn which has got aggravated since the lockdown has been en forced to deal with the pandemic. Some couples are consulting lawyers through  audio and  video calls while others are turning to psychotherapists . Lack of communication and  being out of sync is coming to the fore, during the lockdown. Maybe ,counselling can help and  if the lockdown continues for some more days, more couples would firm up on separation. In India, women have to fight for their maintenance even after divorce . Divorces begin new problems of more harassment.

Child porn has risen by 100% as per  India Child Protection Fund ( ICPF) which works for protection of children & against child trafficking. And many are looking for  child porn with violent content. Majority of porn viewers  are on Virtual Private Network ( VPN ) to escape Indian government ban on  Child Porn .And so, this makes it, extremely difficult to deal with such individuals .For this, more Cyber Crime cells need to be added and  more personnel trained to deal with Cyber Crimes.The fact that kids are victims of Porn means that women are more stressed as they need to be more vigilant about their kids .And this is further adding to their woes in this lockdown.

There is some upside for women in this pandemic time. Corona seems to be affecting men more than it infects women. More men are falling prey to Covid 19 than women.Maybe, women are better at handling infections just like they are good  in dealing with  everything. Maybe, because women have stronger genetic makeup which fights infections in a better manner. Male gender is at risk by Corona and  yet, science has always studied the male body.Drug trials and vaccine tests are done keeping the male body as reference .This can later lead to many of the drugs and  vaccines being withdrawn because they were never tested to see how they would affect the female bodies. Science needs to treat women fairly so that effective medicines can be made, which will help the whole of the human race not just the male gender.After all , this is the minimum that science can do as a tribute to the discoverer of Corona virus, the scientific pioneer,Ms. June Almeida, a woman  who is being acknowledged now, for her iconic work in virology, way back in 1964.

The world over, female heads of State have been able to control the pandemic better than the male heads of state. Taiwan, headed by President Tsai Ing-wen    is exporting face masks to other nations .

The Taiwanese President had ordered inspections of all the flights which landed in Taiwan from Wuhan , China when she heard about the virus that was still unknown in December, 2019. A unit was set up to monitor the epidemic and  production of personal protection equipment was scaled up .The control was so effective, that USA has asked that Taiwan be given observer status at WHO. Angela Merkel of Germany handled the Corona virus spread so well that Germany had the least number of fatalities in Europe .Similarly, New Zealand's PM, Jacinda Ardern ordered a four week lockdown from March 23.There was  large scale testing which limited the number of deaths to nine. And this she did, by banning all tourists though tourism is the biggest revenue generator for her country.

Likewise PMs of Finland, Iceland, Sint Maarten  ( all are women ) have taken firm steps of widespread testing and  quarantining to control the spread .And they are winning  ! It may be argued that these small countries are easy to govern .And yet, small steps lead to bigger things !

And  this means, that women need to lead , so that the world is better managed .And more women are needed to make the world healthier and  better !