The Rape Law

                                                                                

 The Rape Law

The ceaseless and recurrent incidents of rape in India have battered the country’s image terribly in the International arena; the various news reports published on Indian rape cases has not only horrified the country but the world at large. The Brutal gang rape of Nirvaya, the paramedical student in Delhi, in wake of year 2012 generated shock waves across India and even managed to stir up a huge international uproar. But nothing much changed after that. Rather incidents of rapes and sexual assaults on women have increased all the more after Nirvaya’s case, and today India is looked upon as World’s Rape Capital. 

The rape culture in India has thrived because the anti-rape laws of the country are slack & outmoded. A lot of time is wasted in prosecuting the charges against the accused or the suspects to reach a final verdict. Is it time India revised and updated its anti-rape laws? 

India’s Current Rape Law:

Rape is a criminal offence in India. Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code defines it as an act of sexual intercourse in which a man forcibly penetrates without the woman’s consent. However, this crime can be committed in several ways and that means it’s high time that the anti-rape laws that were framed in the 1860s are amended to increase their scope and give better justice to the victim and better protection to women. 

In response to public protests soon after the Delhi Gang rape cas, the parliament of India made a remarkable attempt to safeguard the helpless women against horrendous sexual violence by passing a sweeping brand new anti-rape legislation. After Nirvaya’s case that gave the country the rude jolt it needed, some revisions in the laws have been made.

These new anti-rape law makes voyeurism, stalking and sexual harassment a criminal offence as well. If the rape victim dies due to the attack or if the rapist is a repeat offender, the new gives the perpetrator death penalty. If police officers refuse to file complaints from rape victims for the open cases of sexual assaults, they too can be taken to court and punished under law according to this new anti-rape legislation. 

The new status of the current revised law against rape in India does look more pro-active, but does it help much in reality?

The Loopholes in the Law:

Though initially this new law seemed like a huge milestone for enforcing women’s rights quite fabulously in the country, gradually many loopholes came afloat that became a subject of debate. 

For instance it omitted crucial issues like marital rape. Also certain inclusions in the new law make the process more problematic. For example, raising the minimum age limit of consent, clauses where it’s mentioned that the rape victim will be interrogated for first –round information collection only by a police officer who is female are some major inclusions that ultimately stood out as the major loopholes in the current anti-rape law.

Here is a look at these Loopholes in details:

• Firstly marital rape is a very crucial issue which should not have been omitted. Often husbands bash up their wives, torture them and force them into sexual intercourse against their will. This sort of behaviour is actually ingrained in the male-dominated society of India. Lawmakers really need to deal with it with a stern hand because marital rape shatters the dreams of a married woman and degrades her soul.
• By raising the consent age, scope for teen rape and juvenile rape cases in the country have been created and so this loophole too needs to be plugged through appropriate revisions.
• Clauses which say that only a female officer can interrogate a rape victim really make no sense because in our country only 6.5% of the police force comprises of female officers while the rest are all males. Instead there should have been a provision in the new law which clarified that the kind of language and demeanour the officers, whether male or female, use or take up while interrogating the traumatized rape survivors should be kind, unbiased and non-judgemental.

While the new Rape laws in India do have the potential to thwart the rate of rapes reported every day, the loopholes that have ignited debate among the countless social activists, feminists and reformers need to be dealt with once and for all to see any REAL changes.