By Rahil Mehta
Introduction
Domestic violence in India is an omnipresent reality that transcends homes across class, caste and religion. Indian mentality, however, is geared towards the ultimate protection of the sacred institution of marriage and the family from breaking down.[1] Such a mentality pushes a woman towards developing certain coping mechanisms that help her endure this harsh reality. But what happens when she is stripped of these coping mechanisms? What happens when her mobility is restricted, her community ties are severed and any social services available to her are rendered largely defunct? In such a situation a woman finds herself trapped in a home that instead of offering her security, serves up perfect conditions for her abuse, torture and violence.
Countries the world over have experienced a relentless surge in cases of domestic violence ever since they started imposing lockdowns as a response to COVID-19.[2] India too is no exception. In the period between March 25 and May 31, 1,477 cases of domestic violence were filed by Indian women – the highest such recorded number in 10 years in India.[3] In the present article, the author discusses possible solutions that may be urgently implemented for effectively dealing with this ‘shadow pandemic’.
The law dealing with domestic violence in India is The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (“DV Act”). The current operation of the DV Act is grossly inadequate in remedying the issue of domestic violence in India during a lockdown. The execution of this law has gaping lapses that make the process of redressal largely ineffective and time-consuming. For instance, the Act mandates the appointment of certain persons known as Protection Officers (“POs”).[4] They are supposed to be the first point of contact for women and act as the link between them and the judicial process. They are required to counsel women and navigate them through the process of seeking redressal by filing Domestic Incidence Reports (“DIRs”) on their behalf and they assist the court by presenting a near-accurate account of the actual state of affairs inside the home of the victim.[5]
However, currently, there is an acute dearth of Protection Officers across the country. This can be attributed to the abject negligence of their conditions of service by the government. POs are hired on year-long contracts, do not receive their paychecks on time, and lack basic amenities of working, such as a mere office space.[6] In 2013, the Gujarat High Court observed that there was only one PO for the entire district of Ahmedabad, who was burdened with 800 pending applications over a seven-month period.[7]
Further, domestic violence proceedings in courts can prove to be extremely arduous and long-drawn. Perpetrators of violence are able to extend proceedings over years on end even for the grant of interim reliefs to the victim.[8] These issues are only aggravated in a lockdown. First, the lockdown makes it tougher than usual for women to get in touch with local POs, and thus access to help is restricted. Second, with most courts across the country being shut for physical hearings, cases may take longer than ever to be taken up. This makes it virtually impossible to get interim reliefs. We shall discuss potential social and legal solutions to both of these burning problems.
Social Mechanisms to Deal with Domestic Violence
In times of such exigencies, it must be realised that traditional methods of grievance redressal will not be adequate to tackle domestic violence. The best way to deal with this would be to establish a delicate combination of both legal and social mechanisms to help victims of domestic violence. The government must realise that its strength lies in the decentralisation of its duties. Such decentralisation must be done by creating multiple branches of outreach and setting up a multi-agency structure that will create new nodes of access for women. It is now more than ever that we require greater collaboration between the government on one hand and service providers such as NGOs on the other.
Women who confide in and receive external support from their friends, relatives or neighbours, are much more likely to have action taken against their abusers.[9] However, the current lockdown has virtually shut off such access to most women. In what can be seen as the first step towards building external support, the government has released certain helplines through which women may alert the authorities about violence at home.[10] Effective as this may be, we can be sure that the number of complaints received on these helplines is hardly representative of the actual number of victims. According to the latest National Family Health Survey (2015-16), 86% of all domestic violence victims never sought any help to stop the violence they faced at home.[11] This reluctance may be attributed to either fear, shame, ignorance or the stigma attached to publicising violence caused by an intimate partner.[12]
Thus, it is upon the government to take the initiative of contacting these victims by itself. Local authorities, with the help of NGOs, must conduct follow-up checks over the phone with women within a district who have experienced serious cases of domestic violence in the past. For women with extremely serious histories and volatile conditions, a home-visit by the police may also be warranted. This latter step must be used sparingly and must only be conducted in the presence of a female police officer. The Orissa government is undertaking a similar home-visit programme currently.[13]
Further, there needs to be an increase in the number of physical access points of redressal for women. These access points can be set up in shops and establishments selling essential services such as pharmacies and grocery stores, thus ensuring that their availability remains unhampered in the lockdown. Women could go to these shops and alert the authorities, and the matter can be handled by the police from there. An interesting movement is gaining traction in Europe, wherein women are going to pharmaceutical stores and asking for “Mask-19”, a codeword for help from the shop-owner.[14] A parallel movement in India is the “Red Dot’’ initiative by WEFT (Women Entrepreneurs For Transformation) Foundation, wherein women are alerting their neighbours and friends of being in danger by sporting red dots on their palms or foreheads.[15]
The lockdown also makes it near impossible for women to access the services of Protection Officers – supposedly their first points of contact. In such a case, the government can confer powers of POs on on-duty female police officers so that they can be contacted by victims easily and can perform functions such as filing DIRs to magistrates on the victims’ behalf. Another crucial class of functionaries under the DV Act are service providers such as NGOs and women’s commissions. On being contacted by a victim, the responsibility lies on the service providers to assess the situation and if necessary, either have the victim undergo a medical examination, or transfer her to a shelter home.[16] Apart from this, they are also responsible for helping women procure legal aid.[17] Some service providers are even specialised in providing counselling services to couples and help them in arriving at consent terms outside court.
In 2017, the Ministry of Women and Child Development had launched the ‘One Stop Centre’ scheme.[18] These centres are facilities established at the district-level to provide women with police facilitation, psycho-social counselling, legal counselling and medical aid all under one single roof. In addition to this, they are also equipped with very limited temporary stay services of up to 5 days with 5 beds. Even during the lockdown, these centres and a lot of independent service providers and NGOs remain active in their efforts to help victims of domestic violence.
One of the biggest issues being raised by these service providers is the inability of shelter homes to accommodate women.[19] Women are being turned away either because these homes are already packed to the brim, or they are operating at very low capacities to prevent the spread of the virus. In such a situation, the government must look at providing accommodation to victims in governmental lodgings, circuit houses and public guest-houses. Private hotels, hostel rooms and emptied commercial complexes or buildings may also be rented out and paid for by the government to provide refuge to victims. All such establishments used as shelter homes must be declared ‘essential services’ and the transport of women to these facilities must be arranged by the government. For example, in March, the French government had decided to pay for 20,000 hotel-room-nights for domestic-violence victims during its lockdown.[20]
It has also been suggested that domestic violence may be addressed by an abuser-centric approach.[21] One of the ways to do this would be to give counselling services to perpetrators of violence to relieve tensions at home. If this does not work, then instead of the victims the abusers should be transferred to shelter homes.[22] This is useful for protecting the interests of children, who can remain in the care of their mother in the comfortable surroundings of their homes.
Legal Mechanisms to Deal with Domestic Violence
Finally, it must be recognised that an extremely crucial remedy for women against their abusers is their entitlement to obtain urgent reliefs under the DV Act. Under sections 18-22 of the Act, magistrates can pass orders for residence, protection, custody and compensation in favour of women.[23] Without these orders, women are left virtually helpless against their abusers. The lockdown has forced the suspension of physical hearings across a majority of courts in India. The few that are operating in small towns are doing so at very little capacity. In such circumstances, it is unreasonable to expect women to obtain urgent reliefs from courts quickly.
To solve this problem, the government can extend the power of granting reliefs – up to a limited extent – to service providers registered under the Act with state governments. These service providers have greater access to victims and are generally among the first points of contact for the victims. They may be granted limited powers to pass protection and residence orders in favour of women. These orders may remain in force for a limited period of say, 8-10 days until they are reviewed by a magistrate. This will substantially help women in getting emergency reliefs and protection against their abusers on an urgent basis. In fact, a proposal to amend the DV Act on similar lines was introduced in the Rajya Sabha in 2012 as a private member’s bill, but it has long since lapsed.[24]
Apart from the above solutions, the government must also push for a continuous expansion of its outreach to citizens by tapping various fora such as television, radio and social media to sensitise people to the issue of domestic violence. These campaigns must publicise helplines, build public solidarity and appeal for contributions towards it. Large-scale investments must be made to bolster suitable infrastructure for shelter homes, to arrange safe transport of women and children to the shelter homes, to equip the police force with adequate resources, and to support the daily operations of service providers.
The solutions discussed in this paper are geared towards short-term damage control, but they may very well be incorporated into the long-term policies of our government to make the law even more robust and effective in protecting women from violence within their own homes. Unless we take up the issue of domestic violence urgently and demonstrate clear conviction in dealing with it, our nation risks reeling from a double whammy. While struggling to protect the health of our nation against the virus, we will also risk watching our most intimate social institutions crumble before us, helplessly.
The author, Rahil Mehta, is currently a law student at the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR), Hyderabad.
[1] N. Maheshvari, Indian Women in Marriage: When the Sacred Marriage Thread Becomes a Noose, 25 Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity 84, 84 (2011), http://www.jstor.org/stable/41321403, last seen on 04/07/2020.
[2] COVID-19 and Ending Violence Against Women and Girls, UN Women, available at https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/library/publications/2020/issue-brief-covid-19-and-ending-violence-against-women-and-girls-en.pdf?la=en&vs=5006, last seen on 05/07/2020.
[3] Vignesh Radhakrishnan, Sumant Sen and Naresh Singaravelu, Domestic violence complaints at a 10-year high during COVID-19 lockdown, The Hindu (24/06/2020), available at https://www.thehindu.com/data/data-domestic-violence-complaints-at-a-10-year-high-during-covid-19-lockdown/article31885001.ece, last seen on 04/07/2020.
[4] S. 8, The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005.
[5] S. 2(e), The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005.
[6] Suo Motu v. State of Gujarat and Ors., 2013 2 GLR 1047.
[7] Id.
[8] Shreeja Sen, Ten years on, where does the Domestic Violence Act stand?, Live Mint (28/10/2016), available at https://www.livemint.com/Politics/oin3GVsX0EJkR8uccpniIJ/Ten-years-on-where-does-the-Domestic-Violence-Act-stand.html, last seen on 04/07/2020.
[9] Sreeparna Chattopadhyay & Suraj Jacob, Victims of Domestic Violence in India Rarely Come Forward or Seek Help, The Wire (11/01/2019), available at https://thewire.in/women/domestic-violence-india-reporting, last seen on 04/07/2020.
[10] Helplines, National Commission for Women, available at http://www.ncw.nic.in/helplines, last seen on 25/06/2020.
[11] Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) 2015-16, available at http://rchiips.org/nfhs/NFHS-4Reports/India.pdf, last seen on 05/07/2020.
[12] Wendy Patrick, How Social Stigma Silences Domestic Violence Victims, Psychology Today (09/04/2018), available at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-bad-looks-good/201804/how-social-stigma-silences-domestic-violence-victims, last seen on 04/07/2020.
[13] PTI, Odisha police initiate ‘Phone-Up Programme’ to address domestic violence during lockdown, Orissa Post (18/04/2020), available at https://www.orissapost.com/odisha-police-initiate-phone-up-programme-to-address-domestic-violence-during-lockdown/, last seen on 27/06/2020.
[14] Ivana Kottasová & Valentina Di Donato, Women are using code words at pharmacies to escape domestic violence during lockdown, CNN (06/04/2020), available at https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/02/europe/domestic-violence-coronavirus-lockdown-intl/index.html, last seen on 19/06/2020.
[15] PTI, Using ‘red dot’ signal, women seek help to escape domestic violence during lockdown, Deccan Herald (04/04/2020), available at https://www.deccanherald.com/national/north-and-central/using-red-dot-signal-women-seek-help-to-escape-domestic-violence-during-lockdown-821281.html, last seen on 19/06/2020.
[16] S. 10, The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005.
[17] Id.
[18] Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India, One Stop Centre Scheme, 1 (2017), available at https://wcd.nic.in/sites/default/files/OSC_G.pdf, last seen on 23/06/2020.
[19] Shamita Harsh, COVID-19 Lockdown: India is Failing Domestic Violence Victims, Stories Asia (25/04/2020), available at https://www.storiesasia.org/2020/04/25/covid-19-lockdown-india-is-failing-domestic-violence-victims/, last seen on 03/07/2020.
[20] Reuters, France to put domestic violence victims in hotels as numbers soar under coronavirus lockdown, France 24 (30/03/2020), available at https://www.france24.com/en/20200330-france-to-put-domestic-violence-victims-in-hotels-as-numbers-soar-under-coronavirus-lockdown, last seen on 23/06/2020.
[21] Nadeem Inamdar, Pune ZP to send domestic violence perpetrators to institutional quarantine, Hindustan Times (19/04/2020), available at https://www.hindustantimes.com/pune-news/pune-zp-to-send-domestic-violence-perpetrators-in-institutional-quarantine/story-UZJSOjnuWie1KFn10IilrN.html, last seen on 23/06/2020.
[22] Id.
[23] Ss. 18, 19, 20, 21 & 22, The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005.
[24] The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence (Amendment) Bill, 2012 (lapsed in Rajya Sabha), available at http://164.100.47.4/billstexts/rsbilltexts/AsIntroduced/domestc-E.pdf, last seen on 03/07/2020.
The Journal of Indian Law and Society 