India-Rajasthan State – Chastity Belts – Violence Against Women – AHRC News

August 3, 2007

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission

INDIA: Forcing women to wear a chastity belt is a common practice in
Rajasthan

A female passenger in a public bus
was found bleeding from her thighs and the fellow passengers took her to
hospital. At the hospital, the doctors who examined the lady found that she
was wearing a chastity belt. The lady was bleeding from the injuries caused
by wearing the belt. In case anyone is wondering where this happened, the
incident is reported from the north-western Indian state of Rajasthan.

Rajasthan is known to be one of the prime tourist destinations in India.
However, what is least known is the horrifying condition of women in that
state. The state, known more for its tourist attractions like the ancient
forts and the Rajput culture, is a graveyard of women’s rights. The practice
of forcing women to wear a chastity belt is so common in Rajasthan that a
website hosting advertisements of Indian industries boasts about various
designs of chastity belts, even made from precious metals like silver and
gold.

Violence committed against women is very high in Rajasthan. Evil practices
like the demand and acceptance of dowry
is widespread in the state. The practice of payment of dowry is more rampant
within the middleclass society. Even highly educated women from prestigious
institutions are married off to strangers against their will. One of the well
known women’s colleges in the state has a considerable number of dropouts in
their higher degree courses since their students are often forced into
marriages, often against their will, before they complete their studies. Once
married, the woman is expected to remain at home and is confined to the four
walls of her husband’s house. Higher education for women is only considered
as a quotient to bargain for less dowry in the middleclass society in
Rajasthan.

The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 prohibits the demand and acceptance of dowry
in India. However, if the Act is to be implemented, and the practice of dowry
to be rooted out, what the state requires is good policing and a criminal
justice system that functions. But in the state where women are treated as
chattels, valued at par with cattle, the execution of the Act has failed. One
has only to look at the records of the National Crime Records Bureau. Cases
registered against the demand and acceptance of dowry in Rajasthan are
relatively low in comparison to other cases of violence committed against
women across the country.

Criminal acts, like verbal, emotional and physical abuse of women within the
home is not considered as a crime in the state. Even courts reject complaints
filed by women complainants on the ground that a woman does not have a right
to complain, particularly if the complaint is against her husband or any
other relative. This situation gives a handle to criminals abusing women.

Women are often compelled to engage in drug trafficking and prostitution in
Rajasthan. Women forced into such activities are abducted from rural villages
at a very young age, trained in distant places and later forced into active
service. Several of them who get caught by the law enforcement agencies at a
later stage in their career end up in state prisons. Those who get arrested
remain in prison for years without any recourse to legal or medical aid. Many
are raped in custody. Not being able to complain about their situation they
end up as carriers of life-threatening diseases and other sexually
transmitted ailments.

The commonly heard excuse for this dismal condition of women in Rajasthan is
the feudal mindset of the society in that state. Even though it is true to a
certain extent that several persons in Rajasthan indeed entertain a feudal
mindset, the actual cause for the uninterrupted continuation of violence
against the women in Rajasthan is the failure of the law enforcing agencies
to maintain rule of law in the state.

In many parts of the state, the law enforcement agency, particularly the
police, are controlled by the local political party leaders. Most of them,
believing and propagating their interpretation of Hinduism, promoted by the
Bahratiya Janata Party [BJP] advocate Manu旧
proposition of women being equated to a Dalit. According to Manu旧
law, the Manusmriti, women do not have equal status vis a vis the men. They
have no other right other than those that have been granted to them by their
husbands.

The local police are controlled by the political henchmen who are in turn
motivated by the interpretation of Hinduism as dictated by the BJP, the
ruling party of the state. This is the cause for the blatant refusal of the
police to register complaints by women and women groups in the state for
crimes committed against them. Anyone who is adamant is referred to the local
political party leader or the party office. Such referrals often result in
further abuse, often in public, which serves as a powerful deterrent against
any woman or group, who is already isolated within the society. The courts in
Rajasthan are also not free from a similar influence.

Continuing violence against a particular section in the society does not
happen in a vacuum. There are several factors that facilitate such unfettered
continuation of evil practices. In the state of Rajasthan, a corrupt law
enforcement mechanism including a non- independent judiciary is the key
factor that has sanctioned the unabated recurrence of barbaric crimes against
women. The religiously charged political ideology that leads the state
administration is just the veil covering an almost fallen system in which the
women in Rajasthan continue to be persecuted within the confines of their own
family.

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About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional
non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in
Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.