Cruelty by husband, kin rose 53% in 18 years

Tribune News Service

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, April 23

The burden of domestic violence against women has grown multifold in the last nearly two decades with the rate of conviction for the crime remaining abysmally low.

The largest longitudinal study of the National Crimes Record Bureau’s domestic violence data reveals cruelty by husbands and relatives making up bulk of the cases.

The rate of reported cases of cruelty by husbands and relatives marked an increase of 53 per cent between 2001 and 2018, with the middle socio-demographic index states housing the highest burden of this crime.

"A total of 15,48,548 cases were reported under cruelty by husband or his relatives over 18 years from 2001 to 2018, with 5,54,481 (35.8 pc) between 2014 and 2018 alone.

The reported rate of this crime in India was 18.5 in 2001 and 28.3 in 2018 per 100,000 women aged 15–49 years, marking a signifcant increase of 53 pc over this period," finds the study published in BMC Health, an open access peer reviewed journal on health services.  

The study seeks to gauge India's preparedness to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goal 5 of eliminaiton of all forms of violence to women and girls.

Author Rakhi Dandona of the Public Health Foundation of India said the rate of crime involving cruelty by husbands was 37.9 for the middle SDI states as compared with 27.6 in the low and 18.1 in the high-SDI states in 2018.

The rate of reported crime (cruelty by husbands) remained higher in the middle SDI states between 2001 and 2018 also as compared to other states, reaching highest levels between 2011 and 2014.

The study documents wide variations in the rate for reported cruelty by husband or his relatives in 2018 at the state-level - ranging from 0.5 in Sikkim to 113.7 in Assam.

Delhi, Assam, West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Jammu and Kashmir documented over 160 pc increase in this reported crime rate during 2001–2018.

The greatest decline in the rate of this reported crime was seen in Mizoram, 74.3 pc from 2001 to 2018.

Interestingly, the 53 pc increase in this reported crime rate between 2001 and 2018 for India was accounted for by increased rates for only a few states, and the rate remained stagnant in most other states, the researchers say.

Only Assam and Rajasthan among the low SDI states, Andhra Pradesh and Tripura among the middle SDI states, and Kerala and Delhi among the high SDI states showed increased reporting of this crime over the study period.

The mean number of persons arrested under this crime head (cruelty by husband/relatives) in India decreased from 2.2 in 2001 to 1.1 in 2018, and the numbers were similar across the state SDI groups.

In a disturbing trend, the study documents gaps in legal recourse system despite the passage of the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act in 2005.

A total of 658,418 cases (all forms of domestic violence cases including cruelty by husband, dowry deaths and abetment to suicide) were sent for trial in India in 2018, of which the trial was completed in only 44,648 (6.8 pc) cases.

Among cases in which trial was completed, the offender was convicted in only 6,921 (15.5 pc) cases.

The authors say that in India between 2001 and 2018, the majority of domestic violence cases were filed under ‘cruelty by husband or his relatives’.

Regarding the crime burden being higher in middle rung states, the study says it is plausible that cruelty by husband is higher in the middle-SDI states because material wealth is highly prized among the Indian middle class, and dowry is seen as an easy path to greater wealth and social status.

“A higher dowry demand, and a greater dissatisfaction from inability to meet these demands could possibly result in more domestic violence in these states. Another possible factor in these states could be that the increasing female literacy in these states may be perceived as a threat to the prevalent power structures, prompting violence against women as a means to reinstating control," the study concludes.

It says India needs to address the gaps in the NCRB data to effectively respond to the SDG target 5.

"This longitudinal analysis of the reported cases of domestic violence of nearly 20 years across the Indian states has highlighted the under-reporting and almost stagnant data, which hinders formulating of well-informed public health intervention strategies to reduce domestic violence in India," the authors say.

WHO estimates

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates a 26% prevalence of intimate partner violence in ever-married/partnered women aged 15 years or more globally in 2018, and this prevalence is higher at 35% for the southern Asia region in which India falls.

Disturbing numbers

1. Domestic violence cases documented by the study as per NCRB (2001-2018) data under four heads: cruelty by husband/relatives; dowry deaths; abetment to suicide and Prevention of Domestic Violence Act: 17,11, 273

2. Cruelty by husband or his relatives: 1,548,548 cases making up 90.5 pc of all domestic violence cases.

3. Dowry deaths: 1,37,627

4. Abetment of suicide of women: Data under this crime head was available from 2014 to 2018, during which 22,579 cases were reported.

5. Prevention of DV Act: A total of 2,519 cases were reported under PWDVA between 2014 and 2018.

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