Every 16 minutes, a woman is raped somewhere in India

NCRB Data Highlights Country’s Deteriorated Law & Order

As per the horrifying statistics, every 16 minutes, a woman is raped somewhere in India, and every four minutes woman experiences cruelty at the hands of her in-laws. In 2019, the country had recorded 88 rape cases every day. Of the total 32,033 reported rape cases in the year, 11% were from the Dalit community. 

“Women of Dalit communities are more vulnerable. They are under tremendous social pressure because of their cast. They hesitate to report rape cases. No one in the police station listens to them in most of the cases, even if they dare to lodge an FIR. This police apathy is mostly because of them being from the lower cast. It is high time to have a gender sensitisation drive for police at every level,” Yogita Bhayana of People Against Rapes in India (PARI), an organisation that seeks to support rape survivors,

maximum rape cases were reported from Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. While Rajasthan reported 6,000 rape cases last year, UP had 3,065 cases. 

The majority of cases under crime against women under IPC were registered under ‘Cruelty by Husband or His Relatives’ (30.9%) followed by ‘Assault on Women with Intent to Outrage her Modesty’ (21.8%), ‘Kidnapping & Abduction of Women’ (17.9%) and ‘Rape’ (7.9%). The crime rate registered per lakh women population is 62.4 in 2019 in comparison with 58.8 in 2018”, the data shared by NCRB showed.

The country also recorded a decline of 0.7 per cent in cases of kidnapping and abduction in 2019 over the previous year, even as women and girls were victims in 78.6 per cent of the overall cases. A total of 1,05,037 such cases with 1,08,025 victims were registered in 2019, down from 1,05,734 cases in 2018, the data showed.

The rape vulnerability of a girl or woman has increased up to 44 per cent in the last 10 years, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data shows. According to the NCRB data, during the period 20102019, a total of 3,13,289 cases were reported across India.

While sexual crimes against women have been on the rise, the brutal gang rape of Nirbhaya in 2012 shook the nation’s consciousness like no other. It prompted policymakers to make amendments to criminal law and come up with stringent punishment in rape and sexual assault cases. 

This also included an amendment in the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, to allow the death penalty for the rape of children younger than 12 years. However, the atrocity on the young girl in Hathras is clearly an indicator of how these provisions for harsher punishments have not deterred perpetrators.