Domestic abuse incidences in India soared by 53% between 2001 and 2018, according to a new study.
A
study published in BMC Women's Health that looked at patterns and lessons on
domestic violence faced by Indian women from 2001 to 2018 found that India
needs to focus on measures to fix gaps in administrative data, such as
underreporting and data that has remained almost stagnant over time.
The
bulk of domestic violence cases was filed under the category of "cruelty
by husband or his relatives" between 2001 and 2018, with the recorded rate
of this offense increasing by 53% over 18 years.
According
to the report, the rate of occurrences of cruelty by husbands or relatives was
28.3 per 1,000 women in 2018, an increase of 53 percent from 2001. In 2018,
the rates of recorded dowry fatalities and suicide abetment were 2% and 1.4 percent, respectively. The researchers analyzed data from the National Crimes
Record Bureau's (NCRB) yearly reports under four domestic violence crime
headings: cruelty by husband or relatives, dowry deaths, abetment to suicide,
and protection of women against domestic violence act.
From
2001 to 2018, a total of 1,548,548 incidences of cruelty by spouses or
relatives were reported in India, with 554,481 (35.8%) occurring between 2014
and 2018. In India, the recorded rate of this crime increased from 18.5 per
1,000 women aged 15–49 years in 2001 to 28.3 per 1,000 women aged 15–49 years
in 2018, a considerable rise of 53 percent. At the state level in 2018, there
were wide variances in the rate of reported cruelty by a husband or his family.
Between
2001 and 2018, the reported crime rate in Delhi, Assam, West Bengal, Arunachal
Pradesh, Meghalaya, Jammu, and Kashmir increased by more than 160 percent.
Mizoram saw the biggest decrease in the rate of reported crime, with a 74.3 percent decrease from 2001 to 2018.
However,
Prof Rakhi Dandona, the study's primary researcher and a professor at the
Public Health Foundation of India, pointed out that only a few states reported
improvements in the reported incidence, with the reported prevalence of
domestic violence in many states nearly unchanged over time.
The
lack of anonymized individual-level data from incidents reported in the public
domain, according to the study, inhibits the analysis of trends in domestic
violence that might lead to evidence-based policy change. Target 5 of the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to eliminate all kinds of violence
against women and girls, and rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) and
non-partner violence are two measures of progress. According to the WHO, IPV is
present in 26% of ever-married/partnered women aged 15 years, with a frequency
of 35% in southern Asia.
For
improved evidence-informed policy to address the issue of domestic abuse in India,
data and information systems must be strengthened. The findings of nearly two
decades of domestic violence surveillance in Indian women show that changes in
the reported rate of domestic abuse incidents are evident exclusively in some
areas, while others have a fairly static rate. This emphasizes the need of
comprehending women's and police's under-reporting of cases, hence boosting the
data's robustness. More standardization in data collection and a broadening of
the breadth of data collected by the police will improve the data's utility in
informing policy and prioritizing prevention initiatives to minimize domestic
violence against women in India, according to Dr. Dandona.
Only
6.8% of the cases filed in 2018 had completed trials, with the majority of the
accused being acquitted, indicating that the official system's reaction to
domestic abuse is inadequate. Women are known to be discouraged from reporting
incidents because of the dreary state of waiting, long trials, and poor
conviction rates, Dr. Dandona noted.