New Delhi: India’s response to sexual violence in terms of its policy and the measures taken to prevent such acts are inadequate and lend impunity to perpetrators, a research study conducted in five South Asian countries has found.
The research reveals that sexual violence is widespread and is perpetrated in wars, conflicts, pogroms as punishment, for revenge and to teach other communities a lesson. However, adequate actions and steps have not been taken in South Asian countries to hold the perpetrators guilty and accountable, it said.
The research, conducted by Zubaaan and supported by International Development Research Centre (IDRC), was a three-year project and involved over 50 scholars from five countries including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. It involved facts and analysis on the difficult and sensitive subject of sexual violence.
With five of the eight books of the three-year long research released today at New Delhi, Urvashi Butalia, Director of Zubaan and Head of the project said, “This qualitative research project is a first step towards breaking the silence on this issue across South Asia.”
“Indifference to prevalence of sexual violence, inadequate effort to address the issue through legislation and poor implementation of policies seeking to protect women lend impunity to perpetrators of sexual violence. The books on sexual violence, published by Zubaan, are meticulously put together. Advocacy for policy change requires evidence and research, which these books and their content provide. I do hope that policy-makers in the region will be able to access and use these experiences and recommendations to formulate policies that are sensitive to women and help create societies that are just and peaceful,” said Dr Anindya Chatterjee, Regional Director of IDRC’s Asia Regional Office.
The project initiated by Zubaan in support with IDRC are aimed at bringing together the knowledge and perspectives of academics, activists and researchers from South Asian countries on the sexual violence and impunity. The research not only dealt with the victims and survivors of sexual violence but also involved study of their surrounding to examine what role has been played by the society to prevent such acts.
Experts claim that sexual violence is used as a weapon of revenge and to teach other communities a lesson in South Asian countries. They also said that victims and survivors of sexual violence find it difficult to complain or register reports against the culprit because the state institutions are reluctant to allow this.
“An environment must be created where victims and survivors can speak out and be heard. The silence around sexual violence must be effectively broken,” said Ms Butalia.
IDRC supported Majlis Manch to develop Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for sexual offences under which 700 police officers of all 93 police stations of Mumbai were trained. IDRC worked with Zubaan, Ain O Salish Kendra in Dhaka, Simorgh in Pakistan and the Advocacy Forum in Nepal that is leading the campaign against the 35-day limitation period on complaints of rape to the police.
“Even as the incidence of sexual violence in all South Asian countries has increased, so has the silence around it. The Sexual Violence and Impunity research, led by Zubaan and supported by the IDRC, uncovers the layers of impunity sheltered in culture and legal processes, in medical and forensic practices, and strengthened by the states with the active collusion of non-state actors. By bringing new voices, mostly young, from all countries of south Asia to participate in this research and providing a platform to speak about the silences, this path-breaking work has contributed to the ongoing processes of legal and policy reforms and imagining a new south Asia free of sexual violence,” said Dr Navsharan Singh, IDRC’s Senior Programme Specialist on Social and Economic Policy.
