Violence Against Women and Girls on The Rise Despite the NCRB Data Claiming Otherwise

New Delhi— A string of murders (and their revelations ) in the last few days have shocked the nation and have accentuated the growing vulnerability of women and girls from their own known ones …….from jilted lovers to aggrieved parents.

November 12: Delhi Police arrest Aftab Poonawala (28) on the charges of killing his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar in his rented flat in Mehrauli of South Delhi. Aftab confessed to killing her in a fit of rage and then storing her body in a fridge before cutting the body into 35 pieces and dumping them in different areas of the city.

November 15: Police find body parts of a woman with the head missing inside the well. The family members identify the recovered clothes as that of their daughter Aradhana Prajapati, although the head of the girl was missing. A few days later the Police detain Prince Yadav, who was the girl's ex-boyfriend. Yadav confessed to killing Anuradha and chopping the body into six pieces. He was fuming after he came to know about Aradhana's marriage in February and returned to India. He was pressurizing her to end the marriage and live with him but when she didn't agree to his proposal, he planned to kill her with his relatives in connivance. On November 10, he called her, took her to his relative's field, and strangulated her. Prince then dismembered her into six pieces and dumped the body in a well and the head in the pond nearby.

November 18: The body of a young girl was found packed in a suitcase near the Yamuna Expressway in Mathura. After investigation, it was found that the body belonged to Ayushi Chaudhary of Delhi's Badarpur Colony and had been murdered by her father Yadav. He was aggrieved as Ayushi had expressed the wish to marry outside the caste. The police are investigating further to ascertain the role of her mother and brother, who are believed to have helped in dumping the body. According to the latest revelations, Ayushi is said to have faked pregnancy to expedite her wedding.

The aforementioned cases against violence against women have one thing in common: A woman or a girl killed by her intimate partner or a family member and as the UN celebrated International Day of Violence against Women, Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the U.N. revealed that "Every 11 minutes a woman or a girl is killed by her intimate partner or a family member"

According to the NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) data, there were 371503 cases of women all over the country in the year 2020.  It is a slight drop from the 405326 cases in 2019.

 The reasons for violence against women by close friends and family members range from pent-up anger to marriage without the consent of the family.

International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women: The History and the Significance

Women's rights activists have observed the 25^th of November as a day against gender-based violence since 1981, commemorating the three Mirabal sisters, belonging to the Dominican Republic, who was murdered on the dictates of the country's ruler Rafael Trujillo (1930-1961).

It was on 20^th December 1993 that the General Assembly adopted the Declaration on Elimination of Violence Against Women but it was not until 7^th February 2000 that the General Assembly designated 25^th November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

The theme for this year is UNITE Activism to End Violence Against Women and Girls, it aims at mobilizing people for the Elimination of Violence against Women and supporting women's rights activists, Civil Society, and governments around the world.

For supporting the activists around the world a UNiTE campaign will be launched on the 25^th of November, it will involve 16 days of activism and will conclude on the 10^th of December, a day marking International Human Rights Day.

To mark the occasion the Indian government launched "Nai Chetna-Pahal Badlav Ki" with the theme of 'Elimination of Gender-Based Violence' which will be conducted as a 'Jan Andolan' (people's movement) in all the States/UTs of the country from 25th November to 23rd of December, 2022.

The campaign will bring all stakeholders and departments together for identifying and acknowledging the issues of Gender-based Violence. The campaign will comprise workshops, training, and seminars on sexual violence and redressal mechanism.