18/08/2024
R**E VICTIMS IN INDIA
Dr.Debesh Bhowmik
World Population Review-2024 stated that globally 35% of women have been confronted with sexual harassment in which 40% seeks help, and 10% reach out to law enforcement. The report also reiterated that in USA, total number of r**es were recorded as 140776 in 2021 followed by 35640 in Uk,33918 in France,10410 in Germany,9314 in Sweden,2658 in Denmark,1388 in Japan and 757 in Switzerland respectively.
In India, every 16 minutes one r**e is occurred and every 3 hours one victim is killed or in otherwords,86 r**e cases have been incidentally occurred daily. For example, in 2019, total 32033 r**e cases were occurred in which 27093 cases belong to above 18 years of age of woman and 4940 cases belong to less than 18 years of age. Rajasthan holds the top position followed by Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Delhi and West Bengal respectively. In 2019, the number of r**e cases were 5997 in Rajasthan,3065 in UP,2485 in MP,2299 in Maharashtra,1253 in Delhi and 1069 in West Bengal. But, the conviction rate during 2018 to 2022 was only 27-28% where the gap of justice is highly questionable.
Lok Sabha report 2023 July revealed that in India in 2017,86001 cases of crimes against women were registered and only 11447 cases were convicted. On the other hand, in 2021,89200 cases were registered but only 8544 were convicted.
Per capita crime rate in UP stood highest in India amounting to 7.4 followed by Arunachal Pradesh ,5.8, Jharkhand 5.1, Delhi 5.0, Andhra Pradesh 3.6, respectively, according to Crime Rate Report of India 2024.
In the following figure the number of r**e cases in India from 2010 to 2022 have been recorded where the red line is the actual numbers of r**es which reached at the top in 2016(38947 r**e cases) and then started to decrease at 31516 cases of r**es in 2022, so that its estimated line (green line) became inverse U shaped. In the linear case, the number of r**e cases in India has increased at the rate of 1.93% per year.
Therefore, one should think the actual motivation and justice of the incidents while women are completely unsafe and targeted where domination of powerful persons, political exploitation, social crimes and deviations, law and order degradation, educational backwardness and superstitions, low-caste-harassment, and many other factors are responsible for such painful events. Protests in specific places should be utmost important.