Bhubaneswar: There are many stringent laws in our judiciary to protect women from gender related violence in the sphere like work place, domestic violence, and at other places too. Still the reports state the situation of women in society is not satisfactory and safe. The women face brutal violence at the workplace and many other places as evidently the recent instances have been notified. At present, the women are most unsafe at their house. Women face violence mostly by their male counterparts at home. The report of National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) indicates one in every three women is assaulted and tortured by her male counterparts at home. The women who are financially independent, working also are unsafe at home. Especially, the states such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu , Karnataka where there are the highest literacy rate and reportedly the highest number of women are educated, the salary of a woman is higher than the man in the family, also the rate of domestic violence against women is comparatively higher than the rest of the states in the country.
Though this is not an issue which is only seen in India but worldwide. There are laws to curb this but many times the ordeals do not come out or reported due to various factors and hurdles. Many heinous crimes against women particularly in the workplace, buses, public places , streets etc are being excessively rampant in the last few years. The recent example would be the RG Kar Medical College rape case, where a female doctor was brutally raped and murdered when she was on duty, The most heartbreaking Nirbhaya hag ra case in Delhi in the year 2012, and many more. The cases that become reported are there but that go unreported are brushed under the carpet.
In the present scenario, the necessity is to balance both the gender and understand their respective ordeals because as time passes the existence of laws and its implications convey a message towards one particular gender, that is women. The law is there and it has to be there but it has been seen in many cases the laws are being perverted, violated just to fulfill one’s personal ego, selfish motives, using the women card.
The laws are there for protection not for spreading fear. Earlier the situation was to be scared of men but now the time is heading towards where we will be frightened of women. So eventually that fear remains constant. The idea is to be equal in society, spread equality, equal opportunity, status, respect, liberty but here the situation seems to be going on a completely different route.
A woman being unsafe at home, workplace, public place is unacceptable so much so that a man committing suicide citing torture and fake allegations from the wife and in-laws. There should be a balance in our legal system and its implementations. If there is a campaign for equality then it should prevail in a true manner rather than an revengeful way. Though our society is diverse and composite, there is always a power structure playing. Therefore the duty of the government and the law maker is to strike a fair balance between these dynamic role plays so that neither side gets an unfair advantage.
-OdishaAge
