From Istanbul to India: Fighting Gender-Based Violence

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India is unsafe for women. It’s one of those self-evident statements that we’ve all heard, accepted, even propounded without much thought. But today, let’s pause to think about it. What makes an Indian woman more vulnerable to violence than women elsewhere across the globe? What does Indian law around gender-based violence lack when compared to international policies?

To make any comparison, we have to select a suitable standard. While the world has witnessed numerous multilateral attempts to bridge the gap between genders, uplift women, and promote an equitable global society, the Istanbul Convention stands out from among them. This document, negotiated by the 47 member states of the Council of Europe (COE), aims to eliminate gender-based violence in particular, and “create a Europe free from violence against women and domestic violence.” As it deals with a specific subset of discrimination, this Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence cannot be objectively compared to blanket documents like the United Nations’ CEDAW or the Beijing Declaration. Fortunately, we can compare it to India’s legislation around gender-based violence. How are the two similar? Where do they differ? And what can each learn from the other?

What is a convention anyway?

Let’s begin with an introduction to the concept of a convention. A convention is an agreement between multiple states which, unlike resolutions or declarations, is legally binding. States not only sign, but ratify a convention, thereby consenting to be bound by its principles.

A convention is not, however, synonymous with a law. A convention merely lays down broad guidelines, which states can then implement in the form of relevant legislation. This must be kept in mind when comparing the provisions of the Istanbul Convention to their parallels in Indian law.

Indian law around gender-based violence

Under Indian law, the multifaceted matter of violence against women is dealt with in multiple documents. These include the Indian Penal Code, as well as more specific legislation like the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act of 2005 and The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act of 1956. The above laws are all substantive, i.e., directly defining both the rights and obligations of citizens as well as related crimes and their remedies, rather than procedural. They also deal with violence against women in particular, rather than women’s rights in general. (In this article, I will be focusing only on that subset of gender-based discrimination.)

Finally, note that these laws apply to India, a developing nation with a population that recently became the world’s highest, while the Istanbul Convention was drafted from the lens of richer, ‘first-world’ countries with populations comparable to those of our cities. Having established this context, let’s continue to the crux of this article: comparing Indian law to the Istanbul Convention.

The Istanbul Convention involves four key aspects: prevention, protection, prosecution and coordinated policies.

Prevention

Let’s begin with prevention. Governments bound by the Istanbul Convention must:

- train professionals in contact with victims,

- regularly run awareness-raising campaigns,

- include issues like gender equality and conflict resolution in teaching material,

- set up treatment programmes for perpetrators of domestic violence and sex offenders,

- work closely with NGOs with similar goals,

- and involve the media and private sector in promoting gender equality.

What preventive measures does India take against gender-based violence?

- Programmes like the Rashtriya Mahila Kosh, Swashkti project, Swayamsidha Project, and the Support to Training and Employment Programme are aimed at the socioeconomic empowerment of downtrodden women. These are based on the principle that women who are self-sufficient and independent of their abusers can free themselves from the cycle of domestic violence.

- Our government also educates underprivileged women on these issues through literacy and legal awareness schemes.

- Further, the Indian government cooperates with NGOs like Majlis Manch and Prerana working to empower women against male violence.

Clearly, Indian law dealing with prevention of violence against women is on par with the Istanbul Convention’s provisions on the same subject. One marked distinction, though, is the lack of rehabilitation for perpetrators of gender-based violence in India. In India, sex offenders are seen as monsters, undeserving of second chances. But what if this mindset, which prevents their rehabilitation, harms not just criminals but the society around them as well? Recent research suggests that offence-focused psychological treatment of sex offenders is effective in reducing both sexual and general reoffending. Rehabilitation of sex offenders could prevent their recidivism, reducing the likelihood of their victimising more women in the future. Perhaps it’s time for Indian legislators, therefore, to reevaluate their stance on rehabilitation as a preventive measure.

Another aspect that must be addressed is the monitoring and evaluation of already-existing preventive measures. In fact, the Rajya Sabha has even commented on the lack of information regarding the results of the Rashtriya Mahila Kosh: “Now more than 25 years have gone by, the Committee is not aware whether the Ministry has ever carried out any impact study or assessment concerning RMK. The Committee wishes that the Ministry should conduct an impact study/assessment of the RMK with regard to its efficiency; the extent to which it has been successful in meeting the desired goals; whether it could reach out to the intended beneficiaries across the country.”

Putting in place mechanisms to monitor and evaluate our preventive measures is just as vital to their success as establishing these measures in the first place.

Protection

The next pillar of the Istanbul Convention is protection. The convention urges that all victims of gender-based violence have access to clear and comprehensible information on available services. These services must include free, state-wide helplines operating at all hours, as well as easily accessible shelters and rape crisis centres.

In India:

- Victims can easily access services from domestic violence intervention to legal aid through the helplines available on the National Commission for Women’s website. Not only this statutory body, but multiple NGOs, too, put forth their own helplines for women in need.

- As for women’s shelters, the Ministry of Women and Child Development introduced the Swadhar scheme in 2001. With 318 Swadhar Shelter Homes across the country, the scheme provides victims with the primary requirements of temporary shelter, food, clothing and medical facilities.

- Additionally, Swadhar offers counselling, vocational training and legal aid to help women rebuild their lives.

Prosecution

What about prosecution? The convention defines and criminalises various types of violence against women. Ratifying states must now introduce new offences where they do not currently exist. Examples of such offences include:

- stalking,

- female genital mutilation,

- forced marriage,

- forced abortion,

- and forced sterilisation.

Furthermore, states must ensure that culture and tradition are not used to justify any of the aforementioned actions.

While most of the offences above are dealt with in our penal code, forced sterilisation remains a menace to India’s female population. These generally government-mandated operations are carried out on women of the lowest social strata in mass sterilisation camps with negligent doctors, unclean equipment and expired drugs, resulting in severe medical complications including death.

In 2014, for example, about 140 women were taken to sterilisation camps in Bilaspur, the largest of which sterilised 83 women within four hours. 13 women were killed and many more hospitalised as a consequence. Despite numerous such tragedies, the Indian government has neglected to introduce any definite law against forced sterilisation.

When it comes to the cultural justification of violence against women, India is a mixed bag. On one hand, India has taken strides in the protection of women by abolishing customs like Sati and the payment of dowry. On the other, a crime as heinous as marital rape goes unpunished as its criminalisation will supposedly “destabilise the institution of marriage” in India. Transgressions like marital rape must be recognised as the gross human rights violations they are before any action can be taken against them.

Integrated Policy Making

The final component of the Istanbul Convention is integrated policy making. The Convention advises lawmakers to involve law enforcement agencies, the judiciary, NGOs, child protection agencies and other appropriate partners in combating violence against women. This practice is being incorporated into the working of the Council of Europe’s member governments, as well as India’s.

Implementation on the ground

On paper, Indian laws surrounding gender-based violence aren’t that far behind their counterparts in the Istanbul Convention. So why the disparity in the actual implementation of such laws? Why is India considered so much more dangerous for women?

Part of this lack of safety stems from the ubiquitous root of almost every other nationwide issue: too many people sharing too few resources. The high population density of urban areas leads to overcrowding and a deficit of space, making women vulnerable to harassment and assault. This can often deter women from accessing public spaces altogether. Resources under strain from overpopulation barely reach rural areas, where the absence of basic amenities like sanitation endangers women. The absence of education, meanwhile, obstructs them from ever progressing past this danger. India’s judicial system is overburdened and inefficient, frequently delaying, and therefore denying, female victims their justice. Other problems like India’s deeply-rooted patriarchal attitudes and women’s economic dependence only serve to exacerbate the issue.

But while India definitely isn’t heaven for women, can some part of its hellish image be attributed to mere perception? A 2018 survey that ranked India as the world’s most dangerous country for women, skipping right over war-torn Syria and oppressive Saudi Arabia, was quickly exposed as fallacious. And this survey was conducted by none other than the widely-trusted Thomson Reuters Foundation! Rather than taking any data into account, the study relied wholly on the opinions of 548 anonymous experts. While it naturally does not provide legitimate information about the actual state of women in India, it does give us a valuable insight into the world’s perception of it.

To armchair academics who have never ventured into India, it may seem like a primitive place where women in saris toil away in servitude, not daring to open their mouths for fear of attack, with elephants roaming around in the background all the while. But the new India is nothing like that! Slowly but surely, we are making progress towards women’s empowerment alongside the rest of the world, including our friends in Europe. Indian women enjoy benefits like liberal abortion laws, generous maternity leave policies, and rights to residence in cases of domestic violence, which millions of women in more developed countries are denied.

When I began writing this blog, I myself believed I would find Indian law woefully lacking in comparison to the Istanbul Convention (I am going to blame my bias on those 548 anonymous experts). I stand corrected. India’s legislation around gender-based violence is nearly on par with the COE’s, and each has its own unique merits. More power to both!