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Institutional Gender Violence
Context:
- The latest concluded Lok Sabha election revealed a stark contradiction despite 642 million voters, over half of whom are female, and widespread violence—with 90 rapes reported daily—few candidates addressed women’s safety in their platforms.
- This issue is largely overlooked by both political parties and voters, highlighting a significant gap in addressing institutional violence against women.
About Institutional Gender-Based Violence:
- Institutional violence refers to harm inflicted by institutions that wield power, often through discriminatory, humiliating, or prejudiced actions.
- Gender-based violence is often misunderstood as isolated acts by intimate partners, but institutional violence against survivors can be even more severe.
- This form of violence occurs when public officials or institutions delay, hinder, or prevent individuals from exercising their rights, thereby enforcing structural oppression.
- For instance, a 2019 J-PAL report revealed that 39% of officers view gender-based violence complaints as baseless.
- With one in two women facing intimate partner violence yet a 1% divorce rate, many remain silent.
Forms of Institutional Violence:
- Barriers to Reporting:Survivors face obstacles such as police biases and scepticism, with 39% of officers in India perceiving complaints of GBV as baseless, discouraging victims from seeking help.
- Judicial System Failures: Lengthy and traumatic legal processes can deter survivors from pursuing justice, exacerbating their trauma and contributing to a cycle of silence and disbelief.
- Strong Laws, Weak Implementation:India’s strong domestic violence laws suffer from poor implementation due to inept officials and outdated processes. The officials often reflect the same societal attitudes that condone violence.
Consequences of Institutional Gender Violence
- Perpetuation of Violence: Institutional failures can intensify the trauma experienced by survivors, making the violence more prolonged and severe than the initial acts.
- Impact on Mental Health: Survivors may suffer significant psychological distress, feeling unsupported and marginalised by the very systems meant to protect them.
- Problems in Rural India:In rural India, male and upper-caste dominated panchayats create significant barriers for women seeking justice.
- Divorce is rarely an option, and a backlog of 40 million court cases exacerbates challenges for survivors of gender-based violence, especially those from marginalised communities with systemic inequities.
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Addressing Institutional Gender Violence
Legislations in India to Prevent gender based Violence
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