Editorial: Domestic violence, another challenge 

Women in Kashmir though faced with many challenges are toiling hard to overcome the difficulties of life. However, one issue which renders them shattered is the use of domestic violence against them to suppress their very existence. 

Behind closed doors of homes, Kashmiri women are being tortured, beaten and even killed. It is happening in rural areas, towns and cities and crossing all social classes, racial lines and age groups.

Domestic violence is becoming a legacy being passed on from one generation to another. No wonder then that the cases of domestic violence appear to be rise in Kashmir. Reports have suggested that more than 50 complaints are received by the Valley’s lone women’s police station every day.

So much so that the officials in the police are claiming that the complaints related to domestic violence seem to be unstoppable.

What seems to be more worrying is the fact that the cases of domestic violence are more common among couples who are young or have eloped.

In 2017 (so far), according to data maintained by several police stations, 285 cases of domestic violence were registered.

In 2016, the women’s police station received 29 such cases while these figures were 70 in 2015 and 42 in 2014.

Women are always considered as physically and emotionally weaker than the males and this is one of the prime reasons that they have been at the receiving end in all the societies in the world. 

 According to a latest report prepared by India’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), a crime has been recorded against women in every three minutes in India. Every 60 minutes, two women are raped in India. Every six hours, a young married woman is found beaten to death, burnt or driven to suicide.

Violence against women is not a new phenomenon. Women have to bear the burns of domestic, public, physical as well as emotional and mental violence against them, which affects her status in the society at the larger extent.

According to ‘United Nation Population Fund Report’, around two-third of married Indian women are victims of Domestic Violence attacks and as many as 70 per cent of married women in India between the age of 15 and 49 are victims of beating, rape or forced sex. In India, more than 55 percent of the women suffer from Domestic Violence, especially in the states of Bihar, U.P., M.P. and other northern states.

In a place like Kashmir, militancy and militarization has unleashed a wave of violence against societal groups, classes and communities, especially women. It is being argued that the use of weapons by pro-government and pro-freedom militants led to series of violent acts against women, the state-sponsored gun in the hands of military and para-military forces led to all sorts of excesses against women, including abusing their chastity.

In this kind of a situation the is need to initiate seriously and collectively the processes of humanization so that women in Kashmir are saved from the rising tide of violence.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.