01 May 2013, 01:37 PM IST
Let me use this opportunity to put forward a simple perception which may well also be fact - more male children are at risk from rape and molestation, in India, than female. I say this out of personal experience, out of anecdotal evidence from discussions across multiple segments of society, and now also from what I read variously.
Likewise, sodomy as a means of social revenge by the stronger formations on a weaker section of people, impacts men as much if not more than women. Here again, rural or urban, the evidence is easily re-verified from doctors whose job it is to do rectal examinations for whatever reason.
But rape laws are only one aspect of laws in India which tend to be gender non-neutral. There are many more. Currently, the large debate on distribution of property, acquired and ancestral, appears to be going on similar lines. Women need to be given a special status on division of assets, fair enough, something that can easily be taken care of if people make specific enforceable wills. Especially for acquired property.
But that's only possible if there is clarity and clear title on ancestral property. Where there isn't any, thanks to generations of mix and match, matters tend to get complicated. And no amount of laws will help untangle matters unless people come to compromises.
Which take into account much more than simply dividing assets as stand on a particular date.
The bigger issues here are - how does one apply the same laws to men who may want to demand their rights in the property and asset rights of their wives or ex-wives? And more than that, which are the laws that protect the men from the liabilities which go hand in hand with these assets, because as of now, the liabilities appear to accrue to men only while women come into the picture mainly for the assets? Most of all, what can be done about the increasing tendency to draw males into issues which don't even pertain to them, by laws which give women the right to do so?
Some may say that this is a sweeping statement. It is, if you look at gender biased laws in India only through the prism of dividing property and assets, but it becomes clearer when you take a holistic approach.
Take, for example, the issue of how "building societies" are operated, for apartments and shared properties, across and beyond families. A male is totally at a disadvantage here, keeping the laws favouring women in mind, even if the woman concerned is not married to him or related to him. Discussions between society members can and do turn into complaints by women against men using all the sections of gender non-neutral laws available to them.
Likewise, the sweeping powers given to what are known as "anti-dowry" laws, where again the word of the male's family is simply not considered to be worth anything.
We do need a review of gender biased laws in India, and bring elements of gender neutrality back, at least in some cases.
+++
Author's note:- I've been through the whole spectrum. The term "divorced" in my title applies not to matrimony, but to being divorced from any fear or coercion, but we've seen plenty of divorces within family and friends. As far as child rape is concerned, the experience was first hand, and just becomes a bigger nightmare as one grows older. On dowry laws, I have seen it being used and misused, variously, across family, friends and acquaintances - including a bride burning case that made headlines. On ancestral property, tell me about it, the eventual benefit goes to the land grabber, the liabilities accrue to the male heirs. On the building society aspect of gender bias, I am currently facing a police enquiry on a complaint made by a lady co-owner of an apartment in our complex using the cover of building society laws and other laws, to the local police, pertaining to a huge violent incident that involved people from outside also instigated because of and by her own alcoholic wife-beating husband who it turns out may have a previous wife now, on a date when I wasn't even there, where I am going to have to prove that I was not there - because I really wasn't even in that State on that date - but will need to go there to prove it anyways.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Gender Neutral Laws in India
Dengan url
http://osteoporosista.blogspot.com/2013/05/gender-neutral-laws-in-india.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Gender Neutral Laws in India
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar