Crime against women has become a major topic to be dealt with all over world in recent years. And, the crime is on rise than ever before. Why do men behave so sickly? For ages we have believed that men are stronger than women biologically; and this notion has been used to portray never-ending inequality and the division of labour between men and women, as women having responsibility for children and the family and men being the economic providers. So women are expected to underplay their roles even if they are smarter and stronger.

Do you’ll realize that often it is difficult for a man to understand how a woman thinks? How she feels? How she evolves? Unless a man gets closely influenced by the women in his life, he really does not till end understand the fabric of womanhood. Women process things differently and in their own way. When women face challenges, they look for solutions within. They push the boundaries to find solutions. I think those men who see their mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, next door girls in stronger positions and characteristically gutsy do try to understand a woman’s state of mind.  The brain circuitry for emotional processing is different in men and women. A new research suggests men really don’t understand women’s emotions.

Men suppress women because of their own insecurity. Rapes happen because some men are unsure of themselves, they are afraid of being rejected or deserted by the woman and they need to feel in control of the woman and therefore they rape. Rapes also happen because they go unpunished. Many societies hush up rape incidents. Our society believes men when they deny having raped a girl/woman and women are not believed when they shout rape. It’s appalling but true that rapes happen because rapists are secretly admired by other men who’d like to be rapists but are afraid of getting caught. Rapes happen because of rampant sexual desire, sexual frustration and the urge of men to control women. Men have this deep sense of insecurity and they are just not ready to accept women who disturb the balance of power.

Men have always blamed women after raping her. Instead of holding the rapist responsible for the rape, the society blames the victim. In court, defense lawyers can also use myths to attempt to undermine the evidence of the rape survivor; this prevents justice to the victim. The rape survivors feel too ashamed or too guilty to report the rape or to share it with friends and family. The survivor ends up isolated and does not get the support she needs to recover from the distress of the rape. Studies estimate that only one in nine survivors report rape. This means that most rapists walk freely in the midst of us, unpunished and they become habitual rapists.

There is no sure description for a rapist: a rapist can come from any social class, caste, creed, age, education or environment. It is difficult to generalize who might or might not rape based on stereotypes. There is no hard and fast rule as to who can rape and who cannot.

Nicolas Groth has described different types of rapes: in Anger Rape the rapist wants to humiliate and hurt the victim. The rapist expresses his contempt for the victim through physical violence and irreverent language. For these rapists, sex is a weapon to tarnish and degrade the victim. In Power Rape, the rapist rapes to compensate for his basic feelings of inadequacy and tries to gain mastery, control, dominance, strength, intimidation, authority and capability. The intent of the power rapist is to assert his competency. In case Sadistic Rape, the rapist gets a sadistic pleasure to see the anguish of the victim. For this rapist, sexual excitement is associated with imposing pain to his victim. In gang rape, a gang of usually young men commit the crime cause for them sexual aggression is often a defining characteristic of manhood in the group and is significantly related to the wish to be held in high esteem.

It’s observed that few men blatantly ogle at women; treating them like sex objects, staring at their lips, chest, legs, and butts and obviously undressing them with their eyes. Famous Indian movie director and screen writer Sai Paranjpye had said in one of her interviews that man undresses a woman with his eyes. When he looks at an attractive woman he thinks how hot she might be and how much fun she could be in bed instead of listening to what she has to say during a friendly conversation, a business meeting, in a seminar or even when he barely knows her. Well, some men are good at camouflaging their intentions.

Rape culture thrives in passive acceptance of female getting degraded. We should at once stop blaming the victim. Stop hyper-masculinity in our communities. We should hammer the real problem: when an instance of sexual assault makes the news and the first questions the media asks are about the victim’s soberness, her clothes, or sexuality, we should all be prepared to hinge to ask, instead, what teachings the rapist has received over their lifetime about rape and about being a man. Instead of asking the rapist what victim was doing/wearing/saying when he raped her? The right question would be ‘what made him think this is tolerable?’ Sexual violence is an invasive problem that cannot be solved by analyzing an individual situation.

We should understand this seriously that masculinity does not mean violence, brutality,   aggression and hostility. And especially masculinity does not mean torturing women.  When would men understand that rape is not a normal or natural masculine urge?

It’s high time that we globalize awareness of rape. I think men should be educated about rape right from their schooling; they should be educated about it’s after effects and the legalities. Only a small percentage of rape education programs are designed specifically for men, approximately 8%. Some programs have confirmed success in changing men’s beliefs and attitudes regarding rape and some programs have also reduced men’s self-reported likelihood to rape. There is evidence to suggest that some prevention programs might reduce men’s actual sexual aggression. Socially, our notion about when a child becomes an adult is very contradictory or inconsistent. The age of ‘major’ and ‘minor’ is defined by the law; but, at personal levels we define and re-define whatever suits us.

We must stop the abuse of child marriage, teenage pregnancy and domestic violence. Is there really a sense that boys and men are fed before girls and women, so that if there’s not enough milk to go around in a family, it goes first to the boys. In poor families boys are educated first. These double standards have spoilt things more.

 To prevent the crime rate further speedier delivery of justice will serve as an effective solution. From 1953 to 2011, rape cases all over the country went up by 873 per cent, the only way left is to deal with the problem efficiently, expeditiously and in a specific time frame. To drive home a strong message that the judiciary will respond seriously against crimes. Women are not valorized and this is common in all societies. This senseless importance given to men spoils their mentality. Legal experts point out that the notion that women are less important is widespread and accepted norm; this notion needs to be eradicated from grass root levels. A large section of society still accepts that women are there to service men, that men are justified in hitting their wives and contempt them. We can tackle the problem of rape only when we globally decide to put up with the sham that men are powerful than women.

While the world is talking of gender equality and empowerment of women, we are ignorant about so many child marriages still taking place in many parts of the world. The young, innocent girls live a life worst than animals. They lose their autonomy even before they understand what world is all about. They become vulnerable without any mobility and zero economic power. How can the rest of the world be so apathetic to the one of the biggest threat and abuse to human right?

The arrangement of child marriage is a curse to the mankind; which often prevents the girls from getting the basic education and restricting them to follow their dreams. It can be devastating physically, psychologically, economically and socially. On one hand when we celebrate women empowerment, on the other hand we ruthlessly shrug off the factual instances of the child marriages still prevailing among some communities.

Childhood emotional mistreatment (CEM) has lasting effects. These kids when grow in adulthood; struggle emotionally and socially throughout their lives as a result of being neglected in childhood. Although there is an abundance of literature and research that focuses on the negative impact of childhood maltreatment (CM) in general, the rampant system of child marriage is discussed and argued only when instances are published in media, few people make little noise and the topic gets calmed down.

Child marriage “is an evil worse than rape” and should be completely eradicated from society, said a Delhi court while ordering registration of a case against a girl’s parents for getting her married at a tender age of 8. The Judge of the court said “Child marriage is an evil worse than rape and should be completely eradicated from the society. This will not be possible if the stakeholders like the state fail to take appropriate action against the offenders.”

Now and then young girls are married off to men much older than them. The adult men harass these timid, under grown and gullible girls sexually, physically and mentally. The helpless and devastated girls have no place to return. They are unexposed to the society, often illiterate and have absolutely no experience of life – where do they go? The parents should be pulled up for committing “serious offense”.

Child brides often die young contracting HIV and other venerable diseases, and dying while pregnant or giving birth. In India child marriage is more common among certain groups and among disadvantaged communities in almost all states. Child marriage is marriage before the age of 18, which is usually forced and occurs when the bride is 8-9 or 11-12 years old. The husband is typically several years older than his wife, sometimes decades older. In 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights established that marriage should be a consensual choice. But who’s listening, who is observing, and who is bothered?

Child marriage is mainly prevalent in West Africa, South Asia, North Africa/Middle East, and Latin America.  According to the International Center for Research on Women, the highest rates are in Niger, Chad and Mali where over 70 percent of young girls are married. But, it is said that girls are at risk of child marriage in India than most other countries combined.

If this curse is not ended soon, it will get worse. While we are talking about the world getting progressively bigger, people are becoming selfish; self-centered and least bothered about their surroundings.  It is estimated that today there are 60 million girls that were married as children, which will double to 100 million in the next 10 years. Millions more child brides are now adult women with families of their own, and their daughters will most likely become wives while still children.

Can you imagine in today’s ultramodern and tech savvy world virginity is a symbol of honor, both for the girl and her family? Therefore, families often marry off daughters early so that when she does start to have sex, it is with her husband. The feeble hypocrite society wants girls to become good wives and mothers; this is how a girl can gain status and honor within the family and community. And the worst is alliances between groups are formed through marriage through the exchange of dowries and bride payments, creating bonds between communities. So are we talking of girls as humans or girls as objects?

Education is the only solution to shun child marriage; but when the most basic necessity of food and shelter is not met with, many economically downtrodden find educations very expensive. Girls are considered burden, and parents think she has to go to another family why spend on her education? Often they invest in their sons instead. Another fact is girls are valued less than boys. Is marriage different than barter system? Marrying off a daughter can bring wealth to her parents in the form of a bride price paid by the husband-to-be, which often helps parents to buy goats or other livestock. We should feel ashamed of such a monstrous system still existing in our society. And, giving away a daughter in marriage means that she is now the responsibility of her husband, thus parents wash off their hands of their daughter’s responsibility. Her husband is free to use her the way he wants. In so many instances when a young wife dies, the man remarries without any delay.

As learned and responsible citizens of this world, let us take little responsibility of those small, little girls; let them not be forced to grow up when they are still kids! Let them study, let them play, let the laugh. They are like budding flowers, let them grow and use their potential for something nice and good.

A zero-tolerance policy imposes automatic punishment for violating of a stated rule, with the intention of eliminating undesirable conduct in a society. Zero-tolerance policies forbid persons in positions of authority from exercising discretion or changing punishments to fit the circumstances subjectively; they are required to impose a pre-determined punishment regardless of individual culpability, justifying circumstances, or history. This pre-determined punishment need not be severe, but it is always meted out.

Zero-tolerance policies are studied in criminology and are common in formal and informal policing systems around the world. The policies also appear in informal situations where there may be sexual harassment or Internet misuse in educational and workplace environments.

Today when Asia’s third-largest economy is now in its longest slump for a quarter century, and has to face too many odds due to lethargic decision making culture, I think zero tolerance is the need of hour. Well, the new Narendra Modi Government’s pledge of zero-tolerance for violence against women, and requisite steps to strengthen the criminal justice system for its effective implementation is applauded.

India seems to have been plagued in the recent past with loads of  horrifying incidents such as sexual assault and molestation; frequent news of gang rapes are a shame on our law and order. Women in this country are shaken to the core. Let’s stop making baseless arguments regarding our culture and ethos.  Another issue regarding the size and diversity of our country is being dragged a bit too much.

Violence against women comes in variety of forms such as domestic violence, dowry deaths, acid attacks, honor killings, rape, abduction, and cruelty by husbands and in-laws. One of the key challenges is the dowry practice; the bride’s family giving gifts of cash and kind to the groom and his family. Many times the groom’s family ill-treats the bride if such demands are not met with. To protect women against this threat the Indian government had passed the Dowry Prohibition Act and the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act and cruelty under Sec 498A of the Indian Penal Code. In 2012, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), dowry deaths – or murders of women by the groom or in-laws because of unmet high dowry expectations – constituted 3.4% of all crimes against women. In other words, last year in India on average 22 women were killed per day because their families could not meet dowry demands.

Legal experts point out that many rapes go unreported. Due to “family’s honor” many complaint files are withdrawn and in many cases the police do not give a fair hearing. Medical evidence is often unrecorded making it easy for offenders to pass scot free under prevailing laws. India’s societal changes have been engineered by women getting access to education and jobs. However on the ground regressive notions and crimes continue to halt women from getting out of their homes and joining the work force.

Many activists argue that the rising number of women parliamentarians and the presence of many high profile women in India’s political parties and public offices will act as only ornamental if effective laws and mindsets are not altered to safeguard ordinary women.

To prevent the crime rate further speedier delivery of justice will serve as an effective solution. From 1953 to 2011, rape cases all over the country went up by 873 per cent, the only way left is to deal with the problem efficiently, expeditiously and in a specific time frame. To drive home a strong message that the judiciary will respond seriously against all such crimes. Let’s hope for the best to happen with the announcement by Narendra Modi Government to strengthen the criminal justice system for its effective implementation.

“One in three women may suffer from abuse and violence in her lifetime. This is an appalling human rights violation, yet it remains one of the invisible and under-recognized pandemics of our time.” – Nicole Kidman

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