Government has failed to mitigate crime against women: Activist

There is a need to set right and reconstruct the system to make it functional, as death penalty for a rapist is only an  instant solution and the public memory is too short, said women rights activist Madhu Bhushan from ‘Vimochana’ Bangalore.

She was speaking on a session ‘Crimes against women and justice’ as a part of the two-day national seminar ‘Samprathi-2013’ at St Aloysius College in Mangalore on Wednesday.

She said “one can hardly expect the culprits to be scared of punishment. The punishments imposed on the model of Arab countries can’t be a solution either, as we can not subscribe to a judicial system where the nature of penalty is as barbaric as that of the crime itself,” Madhu said.

Stating that the government and the law have failed in mitigating the crime against women, preventing them or even giving adequate justice to the victims and survivors, she said 47,022 women have been the victims of violence in India in 2011 and there has been an increase in rape cases in the country.

The laws only act as a quick fix solution to address the symptoms of the problem and not the problem, she added.

The ethical issues in the case of female foeticide needs to be addressed since the doctors are equally responsible and during several occasions, the clinical laboratories are taken away by the market formula of demand and supply. If there is no demand, it will be created. In states like Chandigarh, the percentage of sex determination is maximum and the state records the lowest sex ratio. In contrary, tribal communities in India record better sex ratios for the reason that women enjoy respect within the community, she said.