Since the news of cabinet nod for the criminal law amendment
ordinance Bill, 2013 has been aired by media channels this afternoon, so many
of us women have started feeling “secured”. We can now expect to have a formal
law which not only addresses stringent punishment for rape, but also finally
recognised several crimes like stalking, voyeurism, acid attack etc. The list
does not end here; as I mentioned in my invited presentation in the national
women’s day seminar at Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Youth Development on 8th
March, this law would also recognise an ancient crime against women, namely
‘publicly disrobing a woman’. I wonder why this took such a long time to be
recognised as a serious crime when the first “reported” victim was none other
than Draupadi, the Pandava queen in the mythological epic the Mahabharat. Late
but still, we got the law, which in future can expect more research. Right now,
many news channels are running live shows on debates over the consent-age for
sex. The new law would lower the age of consent for sex to 16. While some are
unhappy, some are strongly advising for starting sex-education in schools.
Analytically,
the issues that are addressed in the criminal law ordinance Bill, 2013 are all
interwoven. Rape, stalking, acid-attack, disrobing, voyeurism, sexual assault
are some of the main issues which come in the first category of crimes that can
be done to women other than regular crimes that can be covered under the
category of domestic violence. What interests me is, the first category of
crimes may directly get connected with a larger ambit of crime, namely cyber
crime against women. In my research, as well as in my experience as a counsellor
for cyber crime victims I have time and again realised this. In my invited lecture, I had put a question as
to whether this Verma committee report generated criminal law ordinance bill
would be a “false promise or a true empowerment of women”? The reasons for my
assumption are many folded; a new law can not necessarily stop crimes all
together immediately. Given with this, the attitude of the society towards
women will neither change within the minute the Bill gets green signal from the
cabinet. What ails me more is the lowering of the age of the consent for sex. Provision
on voyeurism carries a strong prohibitory message against any wrong of such
nature even if the girl had consented for sex or capturing images of private
parts. But did anyone think of women and girls from semi –urban and rural Indian
societies? How many schools and colleges run sex education in these places? How
many parents would be interested to let their children learn the basics of
sexual behaviours from trained counsellors? As some of the activists were making their
points, I support their view on the ground that this might in the other way
encourage child marriages. This might also increase the contribution rate to
child –pornography industry. Numerous interviews from college students aired by
the news channels established one fact: underage individuals including matured
teens, young teens and young adult boys and girls do visit porn-sites to
satisfy their inquisitiveness to know more about the “forbidden” words ‘SEX’. Undoubtedly,
this whole process may include several cases of breach of privacy for women including
stalking, voyeurism, disrobing etc, which may perpetually remain out of the
boundary of the existing as well new laws due to the ‘now on-now off’
nature of the internet technology.
Coming to the basic realities, I wonder how
many police officers, lawyers and judges would go ahead with victim’s plea for
booking the offences under stalking, voyeurism etc, when many police stations
in non-metro cities are not even aware what these terms may mean and (even if
they know) how to deal with it. Not to be forgotten that Indian Penal Code is
not an independent provision when it comes to these crimes. It needs strong
supports of equally focussed Criminal procedure code, Indian Evidence Act and off
course the Information Technology Act. Nonetheless, some provisions of these
legal codes are sceptical enough to provide good justice to women victims of
cyber crimes. I enjoyed some of the interviews of ordinary civil society
members, who forced that the education must begin at home for boys and girls. Time
and again the need for such awareness creation is felt by people at large. I
mentioned in the last segment of my presentation in the Rajiv Gandhi Institute
of Youth Development that such sorts of awareness camps must be made necessary for
all sects of the society right from the grass roots level civil society member till the civil
servants including the police, the members of judiciary including lawyers. It
is only then that people can exchange their problems and find general solutions.
Let us hope ......let us work together.
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cite it as “Halder D. (2013),
“A new era with the Criminal Law Ordinance Bill, 2013? Can women really claim
to be safe?”15th March, 2013, published in
http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/
