what is the misuse of women empower ment
Answers
My answer here does not implicate my stand on women's empowerment in India. I support women's empowerment whole-heartedly.
The section 498A of the Indian Penal Code deals with the use of domestic violence against women by their husbands or by any relative of their their husband.
Due to increased reports of domestic violence against women, in 1983, the Criminal Law (Second Amendment) Act was passed, which made the offence of domestic violence
cognizable, which means that any man could now be arrested on the suspicion of domestic violence without any warrant,
non-compoundable, which means that the issue could not be solved by compromise between the two parties involved,
non-bailable, which means that the accused could not be released from police custody even after attaining bail.
In subsequent years, there have been a good number of reports of the misuse of these laws to harass men, which has led to a number of suicides, the cause of which was claimed to be blackmail by the wife and her family, in which they threatened to file a case for domestic violence if their demands were not met.
There have been cases where based upon the false complaint of the wife, the innocent husband and his family members have been arrested, for no fault of their own. There have been absurd incidences of the police arresting family members who could not have possibly done anything wrong; yet despite their sheer incapability, a 92 year old woman and a 2 month old baby have been arrested as they were named in complaints of violence meted out to women. There has been a recent case of a 46 year old rural woman being gang-raped by policemen, because along with the other members of her family, she had been taken into custody due to a false complaint lodged by her daughter-in-law against her family. Even the health condition failed to prevent an arrest under this section, as a woman undergoing a dialysis treatment was also arrested.
Over the last decade and a half, the number of complaints made under section 498A have increased to more than double of what it was in 2000. This means that either the occurrence of the crime of domestic violence or the number of cases actually reported has increased, or the number of women filing fraudulent cases against their husbands has increased. In all probability, it is both.
Abuse of the empowerment laws
In May 2007, a few months after the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, came into force, a research organisation called the Centre for Media Studies conducted a study “to gauge general public knowledge and awareness about the PWDVA among the people of Delhi and some districts of Punjab”.[20] The results of the study caused the researchers to conclude that Delhiites had misconceptions about the law, because, of the 513 people interviewed, about 60 percent believed that there would be an intentional misuse of the Act.[21]
The respondents were not wrong on their part. “This Act appears to move on the presumption that all women are innocent, accommodating by nature and carry an amiable disposition. On the other hand vices and ill-behaviour are solely the forte of men.”[22] The provisions of this Act are drafted in such a way that they can be very easily abused. Section 3, which defines the term domestic violence, (unreasonably) widens the scope of violence by including terms like name calling and ridicule, which may be highly subjective. Section 18 lays down the protection orders which a woman can avail of, which do include prohibition upon the respondent from committing any further acts of violence upon the aggrieved, but then go on to prohibit the respondent from even operating the joint account that he holds together with the aggrieved. The Act also provides for residence orders (under Section 19), custody orders (under Section 21) with respect to the child, and compensation orders (under Section 22). Section 23 confers upon the Magistrate powers to grant ex parte orders. Further, section 31 provides for sanctions for breach of protection order granted to the aggrieved, and according to Section 32 (2) the proof for the same is the sole testimony of the aggrieved wife. Additionally, it even makes the offence of breach of protection order a cognizable and non-bailable offence. As shown earlier, women are believed to be innocent and carrying an amiable disposition, which is why probably the Act does not provide for sanctions upon the misuse of the Act.