AIDWA welcomes the Verma Committee recommendations submitted to the Govt on Jan 23rd 2013, and calls upon the Government to accept and implement the recommendations without any delay. The report is comprehensive, and has pointed to the failure of governance as the root cause of crimes against women. The Committee has made wide ranging suggestions including proposals to tackle the multiple sources of discrimination and inequality affecting women. It has made suggestions to amend both the Indian Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code to deal with sexual offences against women. We note that many of the suggestions made by the national women’s organizations, including AIDWA, which were placed before the committee, have been incorporated in the report. Some of the positive changes which are recommended in the report include:
1. The definition of rape has been made gender specific and other forms of rape between same sex persons has been provided for separately. A longstanding demand of the women’s organizations that has been accepted by the Committee is that Marital Rape should be recognized as Rape. It has expanded the categories of aggravated forms of rape and included rape by members of the armed and paramilitary forces. The report recommends that stalking and disrobing of a woman and voyeurism should be recognized and inserted as new offences in the Penal Code. It has also suggested that Trafficking should be an offence.
2. The report calls for review of AFSPA, and suggests that permission need not be obtained for trying armed forces personnel in complaints of rape and sexual assault.
3. The report has taken into account the negative and often perverse role of the police in many cases, and has made suggestions to enforce police accountability, and to penalize those guilty of dereliction of duty. It has suggested that the law enforcement agencies should be insulated from political and other extraneous influence in terms of the Supreme Court judgment in Prakash Singh’s case. It has been highly critical of police insensitivity.
4. The Report has rightly recognized that khap panchayats are extra constitutional bodies which interfere with the fundamental rights of citizens including the right to choose whom to marry and has stated that these illegal activities must be stopped.
5. An important suggestion made by the report calls for a Bill of Rights for women which defines democratic and civil rights, the right to equality and non-discrimination, the right to reproductive and sexual health and the right to secure spaces apart from providing for rights to protect elderly women and women in distress. It has called for the creation of a new constitutional authority, like the CAG, to monitor women’s rights and collect evidence in conflict areas.
6. It has suggested preventive measures to ensure safety for women in public places, including deployment of police women, better lighting, and security on buses and other means of public transport.
AIDWA calls on the UPA Government to take serious note of the widespread recommendations made by the Verma committee, and bring about simultaneous changes in law and governance so that the objective with which the committee was set up may be fulfilled. The comprehensive amendments to the Law on Sexual Assault and harassment, the Criminal Law Amendment Bill the Bill to address Sexual Harassment of Women at the Workplace should be presented and passed in the forthcoming session of Parliament. Other changes dealing with police functioning and preventive measures should be acted upon within one month, and effective, time bound monitoring of these steps should be undertaken.
