Unchecked violence on women and children | Humra Quraishi

22 August 2024

What’s changed after the gruesome murder and rape of the 31 year old doctor in Kolkata? Rapes and sexual assaults are continuing… one after another. In the last one week news reports of rape and sexual assault cases have come in from Uttarakhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra…Mind you, these are the reported cases. What about the hundreds of cases or incidents which go unreported!

Tell me, where are we heading in this state of complete perversion and utter anarchy, where no woman or child or teenager feels safe and secure. There’s fear in every sense of the term. Let’s not overlook a connected fact: hundreds and thousands of women and girls go missing in the country. A total of 10,61,648 women went missing from 2019 to 2021 across the country. Simultaneously, 2,51,430 girls disappeared during the same period.

Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra are the two states from where the maximum number of girls and women disappeared from 2019 to 2021.From Madhya Pradesh, 52,119 women in 2019, 52,357 in 2020 and 55,704 in 2021 went missing... In Maharashtra, 63,167 women in 2019, 58,735 in 2020 and 56,498 in 2021 went missing. A total of 90,113 girls (those who are below 18 years of age) disappeared in 2021 with the highest from West Bengal at 13,278.

Last summer, 26 July 2023, Minister of State for Home Affairs, Ajay Kumar Mishra had told the Rajya Sabha : 10,61,648 women above 18 years and 2,51,430 girls below 18 years went missing between 2019 and 2021 across the country. “In 2019, the number of girls and women who went missing was 82,084 and 3,42,168 respectively, while in 2020, 79, 233 girls and 3,44,422 women went missing.â€

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB): 82,619 girls went missing in 2019 and 49,436 were recovered. In the same year, 3,29,504 women went missing, and 1,68,793 were recovered. In 2020, 79,233 girls and 3,44,422 women went missing. Of these, 2,24,043 women were recovered while the number of girls recovered in 2019 was not given. “In 2021, 90,113 girls went missing and 58,980 were recovered. 3,75,058 women went missing and 2,02,298 were recovered.â€

Where are we heading

Have we bothered to ponder on the dismal aspect that if this level of abuse and disappearance and sexual assaults are taking place in the public domain then what must be happening in the so called ‘heavily guarded places’ where inmates survive within those guarded gates and high walls all around. What could be taking place in there!

Not to overlook the blatant violence unleashed on women and children during rioting and pogroms and forced shifts cum displacements. Easy targets, they are forced to keep shut about any of the sexual assaults otherwise the political goons coupled with the mafia could tear them to pieces. Several victims of sexual violence during rioting had told me they had no choice but to keep quiet for the sake of their survival and that of their families and clans.

Today, safety and security of women seems to be at the very lowest rung, with the political mafia calling the shots. Not really surprising; with all round degeneration, the vulnerable are not just targeted but ruined for times to come. Look how very helpless were the likes of National and International level champs - Sakshi Malik and Vinesh Phogat and several others. Their careers ruined, because the tainted men had to be protected under the various political guises!

And with the latest trend of bulldozing of homes, women and their entire families forced to sit or squat or stand outside their demolished dwellings. One is provoked to question: where are all those who harp on the safety of girls and women? Don’t they realize that with homes and abodes demolished, entire families are forced to survive without a roof over their heads.

Vulnerable they are! Yes, their vulnerability at the peak, when they are forced to sit by the road side.

And just where are the day and night shelters where the human forms can survive? Absolutely hitting the dismal situation for those whose homes are bulldozed or where the bulldozers are parked right in front of their lanes and by-lanes.

Homeless- jobless- penniless, is perhaps the worst combination to survival in these harsh times but thousands are facing exactly this reality.

Compounded by the fact that the all too powerful land and the political mafia keeps an eye on them. As though the hawks are just awaiting to pounce on the property of any of the hapless vulnerable!

In this atmosphere of political pollution, havoc continues. Instead of addressing the core issue with all its dimensions, politics takes over. It’s getting nauseating to see the perverse levels we have reached, where even rapists could get some level of advantage, get going along the political slants. The stark case was that of the three rapist men accused of raping a student of IIT Varanasi. They were formally arrested only after 60 days! Why the delay when their whereabouts were well splashed? The accused men were said to be close to the top brass of the BJP! Ample photographic evidence of this had emerged, where they are seen posing with the rulers of the day! Mind you, this isn’t or wasn’t one of those rare cases.

Where’s our collective outcry! Where are we heading in this atmosphere where the rulers of the day are playing games whilst our bodies and souls are ruptured … hundreds amongst us getting assaulted and ruined and deadened!

And for God’s sake let’s get over and done with the speeches rendered by the political lot on Women’s Day and on the Human Rights Day! Hollow words mean nothing at all when ground realities are worsening by the way.