The Unfortunate Task of Rating Violence Towards Women

While reading all the long ranging debates on the subject of violence against women, I always have misgivings about brush all violence with a similar stroke. I believe there are many many layers and unless we discuss and debate these, a long term solution is difficult. What made me pen this today, were a couple of stories that my servant has been coming back with in just the last week.

Case 1: A relative of someone in her neighbourhood was visiting, got quite involved in the community by day 2 and offered sweets to everybody around. A while later, the guy left and soon after that it was discovered that a thirteen year old girl and a fourteen year old girl were missing. Someone linked the two events and the crowd pressured the host of the guy. The missing guest was traced only to be revealed that in giving out sweets, he had managed to drug the girls specifically, bundle them into a vehicle and was all set to sell them. By the time the girls were recovered, he had already raped them.

Case 2: A small trader had taken to visiting his employee and got to know the family too. One day the employee's wife went missing. A search through police and networks found that the employer had lured the woman and sold her.

To my mind these are examples of an extraordinary level of evil. There are stories like this emanating regularly from all parts of the country and involve many relations from fathers to brothers to neighbours to husbands. These acts take commodification of women to an all new level when people plot to acquire a woman to trade. It also strips the society of any meaning to terms like trust, confidence, relationships and that just cannot be good.

While the vice of materialism and greed are held responsible for such behaviour, I disagree. Getting a daughter married off as the second, third or seventh wife which was acceptable three-four generations ago was just a few degrees away to my mind. That was about families wanting to reduce the cost of looking after the girl while letting the rich guy use her; this is about making some money to let strangers use her. Today when you hear of a father and a maulvi/ulema plotting together to help an Arab sheikh into a temporary marriage, it is indeed evil of the highest order.

So what is my list of evil violence against women?

Worst of all

Top of the list is this planned, structured luring of women to sell their body. It involves either no consent from the woman or includes consent for a different misrepresented act. To me, it is human nature at its worst. It is not a legitimate means of helping a woman earn her living. It is helping her survive. It basically has no justification.

I would ideally like these people punished the most. Unfortunately, I believe that is not the case. Why else would trafficking be the world’s largest trade? Practically every country is struggling to contain it. India sees large scale trafficking from states like Orissa and Jharkhand but also smaller cases from every other part of the country. But I have yet to see sustained coverage of any particular case that could help me understand how the country is handling it. The level of information available is evident from even the Wikipedia page on the subject (sic) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_India

Second on the list is violence as a right

- upper caste men against lower caste women, bosses against employees, rioters against general public, war victors against conquered residents, army against public and so on.

In most of these, the act is considered a right, a prize, an honour and heaven knows what else, and the society is complicit. As recently as a few generations ago, a feudal lord could call any woman in this fiefdom. All newlywed women were bound to spend the first night with him. For all I know, it may still be a practice in parts of the country. Caste differences don't seem to play a large role when it came or for that matter even today when it comes to sex.

While Chenghiz Khan and his descendants are said to have spread their sperms the widest (with most of Europe including the British Queen having his genes) may seem a long time ago as recently as the Bosnian war and the Gujarat riots, people were claiming rapes would ensure Serb/Hindu genes will spread to the next generation. “Man” has not changed much.

A pronouncement of punishment to rapists that involves enforcing rape of a woman of the perpetrator's family is beyond comprehension. The supposed mirroring of family pain not only reinforces the woman as a man's property theme but also shows the complete disregard for the woman's right to peace and her body. Just last week I attended a North Indian wedding that included a ceremony where the patriarch of the marital family pledged to take care of the honour of the new bride, even if the husband dishonours her. While the concept is per se not “overly” offensive, in many minds, the concept seems to have morphed into "she is now mine to do as I want", and that to me is a problem.

Arguments like a soldier “is entitled” to it, or needs it etc. are specious. The refusal of the Army to open itself to the scrutiny of the civil society of such acts, shows its reluctance to move with times. The colleagues of a soldier who is a rapist need other ways of boosting their morale. The cover-up that the Military Courts of Martial are usually accused of, is not the way.

When we talk of sexual harassment at workplaces, it is often viewed from the “people like us” perspective with images of Demi Moore in the forefront. We need to open our minds to the majority of the working women in the country. They earn below minimum wages, don’t have an appointment letter, and nothing to fall back on neither family nor police. They may be working at a construction site with their husband, or harvesting in a field with friends but the sheer insecurity of their life will make it impossible for them to take a stand.

The third on the list is the opportunistic rapist. This includes the father/brother/uncle at home who finds an opportunity and takes it. It also includes the random stranger who sees the opportunity, much like the guys in the fateful incident in Delhi. The reason I rate it below the other two is that this can be stopped before the act if only the girl or the families of the girl or the perpetrator can take measures before anything happens. In several cases that has been done, but in very many cases, the families are complicit, wishful or ignorant or all.

May be some women are more sensitive to the small signs of the intentions of the man in question and some are not. May be that is what makes the difference between being attacked or not. I have since my youth been out at night with male friends. I did not think I will be attacked and I was not. Was I correct about them or was I lucky? I will go with "I was lucky to find guys as my friends who I knew respect women and they have never betrayed me." So when I hear of stories of girls who met their boyfriends and his friend(s) in a park and got raped, I am unable to decipher whether the girl missed something or the guy was that great an actor. I have had the reverse experience also where I have avoided passes by some neighbours and friends of my parents, only to later find that the guys were later found to do stuff like stalking a girl, getting someone pregnant and abandoning the girl etc.

Maybe the society needs to work on honing such skills in girls. Limiting their freedoms is useless when these acts happen as much at home as outside. The society needs to stop the men from acting up.

An important part of that is the family recognizing such impulses and helping correct them. Visiting a psychologist needs to stop being a dirty word. Teachers need to be allowed to identify such traits and report them. Once upon a time neighbours were allowed to collar a guy found misbehaving. Today's parents will likely beat up the neighbour before letting anybody say anything about/to their child.

Living in the society is a contract that says you will ensure others security in return for yours. That includes stopping of breaches by anybody. It cannot only be the responsibility of the police and the judges. When you let it reach that stage, you are at the mercy of one person who may well be living a century ago. In recent times, judges have pronounced that it is not possible for a upper caste male to rape a lower caste female, it is impossible for a husband to sell a wife, a father will not knowingly marry his daughter for money and so on.....for all of which there are ample examples of the existence of a minority who are carrying out such acts. Police routinely refuse to take complaints of paternal rapes. Marital rapes are not even in the discussion.

How then will we reduce these incidents?

Fourth is the guy who promises something that the girl needs, in exchange for sex, and then does not deliver on the promise. If the girl had any sense she would not attempt to sell her body in exchange for anything in the first place, but even if she is stupid and naive enough to do so, it is a violation of her trust and body. Obviously there are debates on how such acts need to be punished, but letting the guy go free should not be an option if only to publicize such acts. "He kept on raping me for the next three months" does sound ridiculous but the breach of trust and act of fraud are definitely not.

The last and unclassifiable lot are actually guys I feel sorry for. Impossible you say?

There is at least one such case. The Koli guy in the Noida Nithari Case. If he were not employed at the residence of a sex addict, it is unlikely that he would have committed these crimes. His biggest problem was his weak character and poverty. He did not have the moral character to walk out of the job or the money to pay for sex, and ended up committing horrendous crimes. 

Could the society have stopped it? Yes but it required everybody in the society to have done their job....the police to have acted on the first few complaints of missing children, the sewage guys cleaning sewage regularly, the neighbourhood of the children being vigilant, the neighbourhood questioning Pandher’s behaviours, the Pandher family taking action against his addiction...the list goes on. Any report of serial killers worldwide, raises the same set of questions of how can these incidents been prevented? How many victims could have been saved by the right action and what is the role each of us could have played in it?

Should Koli be punished? Absolutely. But I still cannot help thinking, he was in the wrong place and should have had the strength to move out early into his job, and could have avoided a lifetime of misery.

All these are also applicable to men/boys who are abused and there are so many of those. From orphanage administrators to the gang leaders on streets to the priest all have shown their ability to harm young men.

I am all for punishing the perpetrators, but to me stopping the act from happening, is way more important.

My message is not cover the girl and keep her in a room.

When a two year old is raped, keeping her in a room in a burka is not going to help. The guy who thinks a cute naked giggling two year old running from her bath, is sexy, is the problem. He needs treatment.

The guy who sees a young girl that thinks how much he can get for selling her, is a problem.

The guy who thinks any woman is fair game for sex whether a daughter, a sister, a stranger, an employee is a problem.

My message is not cover the girl and keep her in a room...it is check the guy you are allowing around her. Is he respectful of all women? Does he understand the concept of personal space? Does he understand the need for consent?

If the answer is no for any of these, the only options available are: reform him, treat him, report him or isolate him. If every family/neighbourhood did that, our world would be a much safer place.

We really need to weed out these guys before they act out. That is how we build a safe society.