Wednesday, December 10, 2014

The increasing epidemic of Rape and Legislative reality

The world around me is changing, a society is fast waltzing down the path that leads you to the stone age and we have no other option but to wait and watch, We have a new party in power and one of the reasons that it finds itself seated at the helm is because we as a nation were fed up of living in fear as a woman or for our women.

Conviction rates in rape  have been swinging between 24 and 26 percent for the last few years. The percentages are a horrendous as the crime itself.  Progress has been tom tommed and the most important man in India poses with other important men of the world exhibiting to the nations the strength of young dynamic India. A great sight, we as a nation hope that the promises and hope that reflects in the form of legislation is not just a carrot to a starving nation but a road map that leads to the reality of a basic right such as safety


The bill has been introduced in parliament on the seventh of July 2014 
it states that whoever,—
(a) commits beastly and barbarous brutality on a girl or woman, as the case
may be, shall be punished with death:
Provided that if the accused opts for voluntary surgical castration and pleads
before the trial court to reduce his sentence the trial court may reduce the sentence
to life imprisonment to remain in jail custody till the end of his life and no remission
shall be granted by the appropriate Government or any authority to such convict;

We are going in a tizzy demanding cabs to be banned because the man who raped a woman was a cab driver. Does that guarantee that another taxi driver will not ? The fact that a bill like this is tabled in parliament is great, The question is why has it not been passed yet ? 

Conviction for rape is complicated and jumps through a lot of hoops the maximum extent of penalty is twenty years or life. Does rape have to be life threatening and violent to warrent the death penalty isnt the fact enough that A MAN HAS RAPED A WOMAN enough.

Changing thought in society will take time till then fear needs to be instilled in men the fear of death and losing their manhood. It is only then perhaps  women in India will be able to live a life free from the ever present fear of rape and the trauma that they will have to suffer for life.

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