{"id":20,"date":"2019-08-27T07:24:31","date_gmt":"2019-08-27T07:24:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hrdp05.epgpbooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/?post_type=chapter&p=20"},"modified":"2022-01-10T12:13:45","modified_gmt":"2022-01-10T12:13:45","slug":"the-need-for-human-rights-for-women","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/hrdp05\/chapter\/the-need-for-human-rights-for-women\/","title":{"rendered":"The need for human rights for women"},"content":{"raw":"
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Learning Objectives<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

By the end of this module, you will be aware of the position of women in society within India, and globally that demonstrates their inferior social position; why women need specific human rights; and the gender bias present in the understanding and implementation of most human rights law that contemporary society relies on.<\/p>\r\n

Background<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

Women\u2019s disadvantaged social position throughout her life is often referred to as the cycle of violence. In India, there is a strong patriarchal culture. This is reflected and manifested in various forms including: son preference, and subsequent sex determination based abortions and female infanticide; more money being spent on male children\u2019s health and education; young men having more choice and control over their access to higher education, choice of subject and location of employment; men\u2019s age of marriage being later; grooms receiving and not having to pay dowry; male control over domestic decision making, eg the use of contraception, the number, and the spacing of children, and choices over how the household income is spent; male control over the ownership of property and land; men having higher social status in their old age and as widowers over widows. Historically practises such as sati, and when widows were forced to live a life of isolation and poverty in temples but widowers could continue living in the family home were also forms of violence that only affected women.<\/p>\r\n

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Women in Law<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

The natural global average \u201cof sex ratio at birth is around 105 male births per 100 female births.\u201d This equates to a naturally occurring 952 female births to 1,000 male births. This difference in the sex ratio at birth is naturally occurring as more male children are likely to die before their second birthday than female children. Therefore the imbalance should naturally balance out by the time children are past infancy.<\/p>\r\n

In India, the 1991 Census showed there were 948 female births compared to 1,000 male births. As there was social concern that the female birth rate was being artificially interfered with (such as female foeticide and female infanticide) due to a socio-cultural preference for male children the Government of India passed a law in 1994 to ban the determining of the sex of the foetus. Despite the Pre-Conception & Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (1994) by 2012-2014, the census figures showed that the sex-ratio was 906:1,000. The continual decline of the sex ratio, even after the introduction of legislation to ban sex-determination, demonstrates that law in itself cannot change social values and pervasive cultural preferences.<\/p>\r\n

Feminists have consistently critiqued and challenged human rights law arguing that law does not represent and consider the oppressive forms of discrimination most women experience on a daily basis \u2013 a violation of their human rights and therefore cannot be the sole source of a solution to inequality. Historically women were not included as subjects in the definitions of rights. The life experience and needs of men have been treated as the standard to which rights apply to all people. When torture, disappearance, or bodily injuries are inflicted upon women, the difference in their experiences to what men might experience are not recognized. Their identities and experiences are co-opted in to the male definition of that experience and their definition of appropriate redress.<\/p>\r\n

Often women\u2019s experiences, for example, that of the rape survivors in the Yugoslavian and Rwandan conflicts or of \u2018half-widows\u2019 in the conflict in Kashmir, are unrecognized by human rights legal systems and therefore no specific protections are afforded to them. Specific crimes against women have therefore either gone unnoticed and not prosecuted, or they have had to be made to fit into the definition of a crime that was not intended to cover such an act. The experience of prosecuting sexual violence as a weapon of war in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda is an example of this.<\/p>\r\n

Gender myopia, i.e. blindness towards the inequalities between men and women, has been constantly playing a role in how the rules of society develop. If women\u2019s voices expressing how their experiences differ to those of men are not included and listened to, women are excluded from being able to benefit from human rights laws in their own capacity, i.e. as women.<\/p>\r\n\"\"\r\n

The position of women in society:<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

Crimes Against Women in India<\/strong><\/p>\r\n \r\n

According to the National Crime Records Bureau figures from 2013 show there were a total of 3,09,546 incidents of crimes against women in 2013. Of these, the total number of cognizable offences against women were 52.24 crimes against women per 1,00,000 women. Of these offences the most common crimes, in descending order, were:<\/p>\r\n\r\n