The Abuse Women go through in India

The Abuse Women go through in India

--> Girl and Women Trafficking in India

Human trafficking refers to the criminal practice of exploiting human beings by treating them like commodities for profit. Even after being trafficked, victims are subjected to long term exploitation.

Poor women are bought and sold with impunity and trafficked at will to other countries from different parts of India. These women and girls are then supplied to Thailand, Kenya, South Africa and Middle East countries. They are forced to work as sex workers undergoing severe exploitation, thus, open to contracting HIV infection. There is an increase in the voluntary entry of women into sex work due to unrelenting poverty and lack of unemployment opportunities.

Trafficking is an extreme form of human rights violation and an issue of economic empowerment and social justice. Trafficking violates the individual's rights to life, dignity, security, privacy, health, education and redressal of grievances.

Possible Potential Prevention - P3
1. The best two way method of prevention is prosecution and protection. Prosecution includes several tasks like the identification of the traffickers bringing them to the book, confiscating their illegal assets. Protection of the trafficked victim includes all steps towards the redressal of their grievances thus helping the victim survive, rehabilitate and establish herself.

2. The issues of livelihood options and opportunities should be addressed by focusing on efforts to eradicate poverty and illiteracy. Education and other services should be oriented towards capacity building and the consequent empowerment of vulnerable groups.

3. A high incidence of female foeticide and infanticide can be seen due to gender discrimination and patriarchal mindset. This must be corrected backing up with appropriate policies.

4. Relief programmes need to be launched with focus on the rights of women and children, as they suffered, due to, natural calamities and manmade disturbances.

5. A needful partnership is required between the police and NGOs so that the victims feel safe in their surroundings. Also, Immigration officials at the borders need to be sensitized so that they can network with the police as well as with NGOs working on preventing trafficking.

6. Help lines and help booths are very important for providing timely help to any person in distress.

7. Set up Child lines all over India, NGOs working on child rights, missing person bureaus and police help lines and link all together as a formidable tool against trafficking.

--> Problem of Child Abuse

Child Abuse is mistreatment of a child by a parent or guardian, including neglect, beating, and sexual molestation. The Juvenile Justice Act 1986 defines child sexual abuse as interaction between a child and an adult in which the child is being used for the sexual stimulation of the perpetrator or another person.

Classified into three major types - Child abuse of physical, sexual and emotional nature each having recognizable characteristics. The indicators of physical abuse in the child are bruises, burns, fractures, lacerations and abrasions, abdominal injuries and human bite marks. The behavioral indicators of physical abuse are the abused child is wary of contact with adults, he /she becomes apprehensive when other children cry, show aggressiveness in behaviour, seem frightened of parents or caretakers and afraid to go home or cries when it is time to go home.

The sexually abuse child may appear withdrawn or retarded, may have poor peer relationships, may be unwilling to participate in activities, may indulge in delinquent behaviour. Emotional abuse is the neglect or maltreatment of children. It may involve a disregard of the physical, emotional, moral or social needs of the children. Finally, there are social abuses of children like kidnapping and forcing them to beg in streets.

The major causes of child abuse are adaptational failure or environmental maladjustment mostly on the part of the adult perpetrators but to some extent on the part of adults responsible for family socialization as well. Multiple effects of abuse on children can be noted such as; withdrawal from people, emotional trauma, self-devaluation, dependency, mistrust, and revictimization, deviant behavior and interpersonal problems .

--> Prostitution in India
Tracking figures, the list says - approximately 15 million prostitutes survive in India and more than 100,000 women are in prostitution in Asia's largest sex industry center, Bombay - says Human Rights. Girl prostitutes are grouped as common prostitutes, singers and dancers, call girls, religious prostitutes or devdasi, and caged brothel prostitutes. Many devadasi dedicate themselves into prostitution for the goddess Yellamma. Torture, held in virtual imprisonment, sexually abused, and raped are the ways in which girls are forced into prostitution. Brothel keepers regularly recruit young girls.

Causes
The causes of prostitution include poverty, helplessness, trade in the pretext of love, ill treatment by parents, bad company, family prostitutes, social customs, inability to arrange marriage, lack of sex education, media, prior incest and rape, early marriage and desertion, lack of recreational facilities, ignorance, and acceptance of prostitution. Economic causes include poverty and economic distress. Psychological causes include desire for physical pleasure, greed, and dejection.

Most enter involuntarily. India, along with Thailand and the Philippines, has 1.3 million children in its sex-trade centers. 60 per cent of those trafficked into prostitution are adolescent girls in the age group of 12 to 16 years as said by the Department of Women and Children in 13 sensitive districts of Uttar Pradesh.

Control
The task is not just daunting; given the political priorities of most governments it is not given the importance it deserves. A lot is there that needs to be done.

Involvement of communities is of the greatest significance here since it has been seen that their families and communities do not accept rescued women and girls. The situation becomes worse if someone tests positive for HIV because she is immediately labeled a prostitute - a perception that creates a complex situation in the rehabilitation programmes.

A multi-pronged strategy is essential which can help in curbing trafficking and empowering communities and which also has scope for rescue and rehabilitation processes.

--> A view from Sex workers : Delhi

A survey done on commercial sex workers working in Delhi’s red light area says that around 40% women sex workers in the capital enter the profession because of poverty, while 40% of their own free will. Only 50% use condoms. Andhra Pradesh tops the list with 28.7% sex workers hailing from the state that are working in delhi as mentioned in the survey of Delhi’s sex workers done by the Delhi Commission for Women. The main purpose is to draw up a comprehensive policy for prevention of trafficking and incidence of HIV/AIDS.

57.5% of respondents admitted to substance abuse, 23.7% complained of exploitation, 54.4% of them held the police responsible. While more than 60% of women surveyed have children, only 40% of them go to school signalling that second generation’s entry in the profession is difficult to be stopped.

--> The numbers

According to National Crime Records Bureau; In the year 2006; over 32000 murders, 19,000 rapes, 7500 dowry deaths and 36500 molestation violent crime cases are reported against women in India. These are the reported ones. Imagine the number of instances of crime especially against women that would go unreported in India. The state of Madhya Pradesh and the national capital New Delhi continues their reputation as bad example of places to live in.

It reflects country's law and order situation when its capital is a cauldron of crime. While the national crime rate declined by .02 % in 2006; Delhi's rate grew to 357.2 more than double the national average of 167.7.

* Bad examples
Rape is the fastest growing crime in the country today and as many as 18 women are assaulted in some form or the other every hour across India.
- In Latur a 14 year old was raped and killed by four young men.
- In Konark four men were charged with dragging a woman out of a bus and gang raping her.
- Mumbai watched with shame as an ugly mob attacked women on New Year's Eve.
- An American was molested in Pushkar, a British journalist raped in Goa, Canadian girls attacked in Kumarakom.

--> Domestic Violence

In the painful words of John Stuart Mill,
" the wife: however brutal or tyrant she may unfortunately be chained to-though she may know that he hates her, though it may be his daily pleasure to torture her, and though she may feel it impossible not to loathe him- (he) can claim from her and enforce the lowest degration of a human being ,that of being made an instrument of an animal function contrary to her inclinations."

The above lines reflect the brutality that one out of every three women has to face at the hands of their husbands, fathers, brothers and uncles in their homes around the globe.

Domestic violence can be described as when one adult in a relationship misuses power to control another. It is the establishment of control and fear in the relationship through violence and other forms of abuse. It is basically an abuse of power.

Psychological violence includes verbal abuse, harassment, confinement and deprivation of physical, financial and personal resources. For some women emotional abuse may be more painful than the physical attacks because they effectively undermine women's security and self-confidence. Violence within the home is universal across culture, religion, class and ethnicity. The abuse is generally condoned by social custom and considered part and parcel of marital life.

* A word of urgent need :
-- Stop living a painful life and speak for yourself. Stand on your feets and be the power. Be the equal.

--> Women and the disease
In India women are already economically, culturally and socially disadvantaged lacking access to treatment, financial support and education. They are perceived as the main transmitters of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) referred generally as women diseases. The traditional beliefs about sex, blood and other type of disease transmission, these perceptions have become fertile ground for the stigmatization of women within the context of HIV/AIDS.

Emerging facts:
-- Women are increasingly infected with HIV/AIDS than infected men.

-- Women are being infected significantly at a younger age than men.

-- Young girls in their teens and women in early twenties are becoming infected than women in any other age-group.

-- Cultural norms favoring early marriages and early pregnancies or discouraging the use of condoms make women more vulnerable.

-- Rape, sexual abuse and coercion, exchange of sex with older men for favours, sexual exploitation by teachers increasingly make women more vulnerable to HIV.

-- Among women alcohol and drugs are often linked to the exchange of sex for drugs or money increasing the risk of HIV.

-- A small number of women become infected through artificial insemination from an infected person.

-- Lesbians do get HIV/AIDS by using drugs, sharing needles and sharing sex toys with an infected partner without washing.

-- Infected women transmit the infection to their unborn babies during pregnancy, birth and breast-feeding.

-- Women with HIV can transmit the virus to their babies before, during and after birth. This type of transmission is called vertical transmission.

-- Only a minority of children gets infected during early pregnancy.

-- Most infected infants acquire their infection during delivery when the infant exposed to large amount of infected maternal blood and secretions.
-- Transmission of HIV/AIDS through breastfeeding poses a substantial additional risk of infection.

--> Treatment Hesitation
Women fear to get themselves treated due to :

- Low self esteem and abusive relationship.

- Fear of being recognized and ostracized from the community.

- Distrust in health care system.

- Partner's failure to disclose status.

- Women are restricted by household responsibilities and lack of mobility.

- There is restricted access to prescribed treatment due to poverty.

- Women oriented health services do not include STD related services.

- Services that only focus on STD treatment carry a greater stigma than integrated services.

--> Empowerment
1. Women have the right to say 'NO' to unsafe sex and to share needle and syringes.

2. Insisting the male partner to use condom always for sex.

3. To have sex with one partner who they know is not infected with HIV/AIDS and who is not engaging in high risk behaviour.

4. To have regular sexual health care checkups to prevent STDs.

5. To use sterile needle and syringe each time to inject.

6. Finding a way to talk to the partner about HIV/AIDS prevention helps to feel good about the relationship.

7. Women need counseling on reproductive health issues, family planning and safe infant feeding. There is a need for active networking for comprehensive healthcare and social support for positive women and their family.

- By Sunil R Yadav

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