INTRODUCTION
In India the status of women is very high; there are a lot of laws which is made to protect the lifestyle of the women. But still after having too much of laws for women the life of women is still in threat, they have to face day to day problems. One of the major threats that a female is facing rape threat. There have been a lot of rape cases which is happening in the nation. Every week we get to hear a day-to-day rape case in India. There are many women who became a victim of rape. Many of them don’t get proper justice of what they deserve. Legislation and judiciary are trying their level best to make laws regarding rape strict. India is a nation where diverse culture and diversity is followed.
In this culture and diversity, the status of women is the most respected one. But still after this woman have to face a lot of evils in the society, the women in India are considered to be Laxmi and gets a most respected status in the society. Also, there are a lot personal laws which restrict the women to do certain activity. But now with the passage of time laws has been codified and women also gets equal opportunity such as that of men, Rape is considered as one of the worst crimes. It is even worse than murder, a rape even though a rape happens with one woman but it affects the whole society and it literally removes the rights of women from the society. Usually, rape happens in India because still in many places it is believed that India must have a patriarchal dominance society, rape is one of the most dangerous crime a women have to face. Due to rape women are literally torn apart, it is so because they are in their conscious state of mind whenever they face this hilarious crime “rape "Rape comes under Section 375 of Indian Penal Code 1875. According to this section, rape can be defined as whenever a person forcefully puts his penis in a girl's vagina without her consent, or when a boy threatens a girl and makes her agree to put his penis inside the girl’s vagina or makes her unconscious and do the thing mentioned above, then this type of crime is known as rape. According to Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, 1875 whenever a person commits rape he, shall be punished not less than 7 years which may extend till life sentence or even sometime go to death sentence.
State of Punjab vs. Gurmeet Singh, 1996 AIR 1393, 1996 SCC (2) 384
DECISION: Considering the aforesaid discussions, it was found that the prosecutor has made a truthful statement, and the prosecution has established the case against the respondents beyond every reasonable doubt. The conclusions arrived at by the trial court were found not only unreasonable and erroneous but also perverse. The impugned judgment of the trial court was set aside and all the three accused were convicted for committing offences under Section 363, 366, 368, and 376 IPC. The Bench expresses strong disapproval of the approach of the trial court and it's casting a stigma on the character of the prosecutor. It was stated that the Courts are expected to use self-restraint while recording such findings which have larger repercussions so far as the future of the victim of the sex crime is concerned and even wider implications on the society- where the victim of the crime is discouraged-the criminal is encouraged and crime gets rewarded.
KINDS OF RAPE
There are different kinds of rapes in India on the basis of situation the rapes are detirmined: Date Rape: In this kind of rape whenever a rape occurs by any of our closed ones then that kind of rape is known as date rape.
Gang rape: Gang rape occurs whenever 2 or more people forcefully put their penis in girl’s vagina. The Nirbhaya case is the best example for this when a group of people raped a girl in a moving bus in south Delhi.
Then, it comes the spouse rape when the married husband forcefully has their sexual intercourse with their wife without her consent then it is known as spouse rape.
Prison rape are those rape which occurs whenever a woman is captured by someone, then it comes the custodial rape which means that whenever the person is the custody of any person who have some kind of higher official position then this kind of rape is considered to be custodial rape, then it comes the serial rape, this kind of rape occurs whenever there is a person who has continuously raped several women these people are serious rapist as they rape people for no reason. Then, finally it comes the revenge rape which happens in the form of taking revenge from a girl for the actions done by her or by her own family or someone very close to her, job rape, in this kind of rape a woman is forced to have sex for getting job or for promotion or anything which is related to her career.
Why Rapes do happens in India?
It is obvious that Rape is one of the most dangerous crimes which happen in the society. Whenever, a woman becomes a victim of rape they have literally torn apart and are not able to put themselves in the society. There are various reasons which say why a rape occurs. Dr. Samuel a psychologist in his interview has questioned around 50 rapists to know the reason why a rape has taken place. Each one of them had different men had different mentality of doing rape. The main reason of doing rape is lack of empathy, narcissi, feeling of hostility towards women. It is often believed that rapes happens in India due to the lack of sexual education, till now in many schools students are not taught about sex in a positive way, also, due to the low level of mentality of our society where still women are still believed to stay under men and there it is still believed that men has full right over women and can do anything with women whatever they want. It is believed that men have a desire of sex, due to which whenever they see women at their reproductive age, they have the desire to rape of the women. Also, there are many people who have sexual desire towards women and is believed that women are just the object to have sex and they believed that women should not say no if a man wants to have sex with a women.
What India should do to stop the Rape crisis?
The Rape laws in India are very weak due to which there are frequent rape incidents which occur in India. There are thousands of rape cases in India which are still pending, the foremost reason of rape happening in India is the law doesn’t recognize marital rape as a rape , due to which most of the women face sexual violence from her husband, they only recognize rape when the wife is below 18.The next reason is that the law sees only women to be the victim of the rape not the men, there has been a number of minor boys who has been a victim of rape. There should be gender equality among both men and women, the next way of stopping rape is that there is a lack of sex education due to which the mindset of the people is still not increased and also there should not be men dominated society, where women are still believed to get dominated by men.
Also, it is believed that people must give self defense workshop to everyone so that whenever a person tries to rape a person the victim must be able to tackle it through their self defense. Also, now there is social media, certain police stations where women are able to raise up their voice people must listen to their voice. India should have strict laws for rape in India, like that of Saudi Arabia if there is any complaint regarding rape in India, India should also give like that of punishment just like that of Saudi Arabia, UAE. In Saudi Arabia and UAE the rapist is directly given death sentences which must be followed in India. Also, literacy should increase in India to increase the mentality of people so that people will not judge women on the basis of their appearance, lifestyle.
Conclusion
It came to a conclusion that India has a high percent of rape cases it happens as the laws regarding rape in India is very weak and there is a lack of sexual education in India, still some places has a men dominated society, still the nation doesn’t follow gender discrimination and still due to late judgment there are a lot of cases pending. Sexual education must be taught to people also there should be equality prevailing in the nation. Moreover, there should be a speedy justice delivered, so that this type of crimes can be stopped.
This article is written by Kushan Kumar Bajaj of St Joseph's College of law Bangalore.