The Domestic Violence Act 2005 is the first law in India specifically addressing domestic violence targeting husbands, live-in partners and family members who abuse or threaten women verbally, physically, sexually, emotionally and economically (including dowry harassment).
The salient features of the Protection from Domestic
Violence Act, 2005 are as follows:
It seeks to cover women who are or have been in a
relationship with the abuser where both parties have lived together in a shared
household or are related by consanguinity, marriage or adoption. Family members
living together as a joint family are also included: sisters, widows, mothers,
single women or those living with the abuser are entitled to get legal
protection.
Domestic violence includes actual abuse or the threat of
abuse that is physical, sexual, verbal, emotional and economic. Harassment by
way of unlawful dowry demands is also covered under this definition.
One of the most important features of the act is the
women’s right to secure housing. The act provides for the women’s right to
reside int eh matrimonial or shared household, whether or not she has any title
or rights in the household. This right is secured by a residence order, which
is passed by a court. This residence order cannot be passed against anyone who
is a woman.
The court has the power to pass protection orders that prevent the abuser from aiding or committing an act of domestic violence or any other specified act, entering workplace or any other place frequented by the abused, attempting to communicate with the abused, isolating any assets used by both the parties and causing violence to the abused, her relatives and others who provide her assistance.
The protection of women through the Domestic Violence Act
2005, (PWDVA) was rightly hailed as a historic moment for Indian women’s
rights. The bill was notified only in October 2006. Women activists questioned
the government’s sincerity in implementing the new law in letter and in spirit.
The act, the salient features of which makes domestic
violence against wives, mothers, sisters, daughters and other women relatives a
civil offence came under sharp criticism, mainly from men, who argued that it
was open to manipulation as it provides for wide-ranging powers to women. When
the bill was tabled in parliament in 2003, male members protested that it was
denigrating the institution of marriage. It took a further struggle of two
years before it was eventually passed.
The new law is mainly meant to provide protection to the
wife / women, live-in partner from violence at the hands of the husband, male
partner or his relatives. Among its
other provisions are the right to reside int eh matrimonial and shared household,
appointment of protection officers (POS), service providers and counselors and
setting up of shelters for battered women.
According to activists, however, the reality is that most
state governments had yet to set up either counseling centers or shelters or to
appoint POS often shunting off this latter task to police officers who are
already overburdened and disinclined to taking on additional responsibilities.
They stress that in order to set up the legal and support mechanisms provided
under PWDVA, a substantial and specific budget allocation, both at the Central
and State Government levels would have to be earmarked.
There is tremendous demand for redress under the new act
and that 302 cases have been filed in Delhi in the first few months. The
overburdened judiciary cannot meet this demand and there was a need for
sufficient judges to be in place to deliver justice to women. ‘The Delhi
experience has shown that the POS are unequipped to give the required support
to the judge.’
The case of Nazi of Varanasi, a survivor who spoke of the
mental and physical torture she suffered at the hands of her husband and inlaws
when she decided to leave after seven years of marriage and take along her five
year old daughter, her husband threw acid on hter face (November 3). When she
was subsequently hospitalized he frequently visited her to make threats against
her and her family to force her to withdraw the case she filed against him.
Since then 10 different police officers have questioned her and said she was
lying to them. In the meanwhile, her husband renewed his threats to kill her if
she didn’t withdraw the case against him, shared the shaken young woman.
It is not easy for a woman facing violence at home to speak
out for a variety of reasons, mainly because of economic dependence on her
husband. Another survivor shared ‘you face a lot of humiliation as no one takes
you seriously. When I fled form my husband I had to leave my two young children
behind because I had no home, no job and had to take shelter with a friend’.
In order to implement the law, NGOs and activists work
closely with the judges. Deepa Jain, secretary in the Department of Women and
Child Development, while reiterating the government’s commitment to implement
the Act agrees that women remain vulnerable to violence at home due to lack of
access to services.
The government has sent the rules and provisions of this
act to all state governments and has posted it on its official websites to
create greater awareness about it. Further steps include translation of the Act
into regional languages, user guides and an illustrative list of possible
domestic violence scenarios and immediate response routes that the victim has
access to.
