Herstory — Violence starts young, and in the family

Sept 2: A 14-year-old is raped by her neighbour in New Delhi’s Uttam Nagar.

Sept 3:Twenty-year-old Madhu Sharma is beaten to death by her husband and in-laws in New Delhi’s Sangam Vihar. Madhu’s husband Shekhar Sharma kills her by jumping on her stomach and chest while her in-laws pin her down.

Some women make the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Victims of abuse, they find their 15 seconds in the spotlight because of abuse, indignity and death. A recently released study by the Ministry of Home Affairs puts a quantam to this horror: the study of 15-17-year-olds found that 15 per cent had been victims of sexual abuse, including rape. And 31 per cent were less than 10 years old when the incident occurred.

The figures have been reported in the World Health Organisation’s Women in South Asia: A Health Profile, which looks at gender violence as a health issue. Gender violence doesn’t occur only in the community, it happens in the family as well, and includes rape, sexual abuse, sexual harassment and domestic violence. “Violence against women forms the core of gender-based inequalities, and deeply effects a woman’s development and health,” said WHO Director General Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland at the book release.

Dr Achal Bhagat, senior consultant, Department of Psychology, Apollo Hospital, agrees. “Over 80 per cent of women who report for psychological treatment at my clinic have a history of child sexual abuse or have been physically and emotionally hurt in the past two years.” Most of this violence is acted out in front of children, which sets precedents for their adult behaviour.

The World Bank estimates that rape and domestic violence account for five per cent of the healthy years of life lost among 15-44 year-old women in developing countries. The global health burden from domestic violence against women in the reproductive age group is about 9.5 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), which is comparable to fatal diseases like AIDS (10 million DALYs). Concern for women’s health is largely focused on reproductive healthcare and contraception, and abuse within marriage goes unnoticed.

“Psychological violence against women is much more common than physical abuse as women are constantly under pressure to bring dowry, produce a boy child and, increasingly, balance their progressive role as a working woman and traditional role as a wife and mother,” says Mira Shiva, Joint Editor of the National Profile on Women, Health & Development brought out by the Voluntary Health Association of India, released last week.

Domestic problems, in fact, are a leading precipitating factor of suicides among women, a fact corroborated by three studies that documented the causes of suicides in women. A World Bank paper (1994) reports that 56 per cent of suicides committed in Delhi were by women, while in Chennai and Daspur, the peak age of suicide was between 15 and 24 years, with quarrels and maladjustments with husbands being the most common cause.

Emotional stress apart, women have to cope with physical violence resulting in injuries. A study in Maharashtra in 1993-95 found that 16 per cent of deaths in pregnancy were caused by domestic violence. A 1997 study of wife-battering in south India found that 34 per cent of the victims needed medical attention. Depression, anxiety, fear and eating disorders are some of the long-term reactions to violence.

Rape victims not only risk unwanted pregnancy, gynaecological problems, STDs and HIV/AIDS, but also post-traumatic stress disorder, which can lead to suicides, mental illnesses like acute depression and schizophrenia, and self-abusive behaviour like drug abuse and smoking.

Rape within marriage is not even recognised as a crime in India, where women are expected to give in to the “conjugal rights” of their husbands. “Men have a right to sexual pleasure, but the responsibility and the consequences are borne by the women,” says Shiva. She cites the example of rape victims, who have to endure the ordeal of answering insensitive questions from the police, doctors and lawyers just to get the rapist to book.

With support services like counselling for women virtually non-existent, sensitisation of the community and medics — often the first ones informed following violence — is a must. “Most of the women’s NGOs work at an activist level, which pushes away victims looking for support and validation, not activism,” says Apollo’s Bhagat.

Community-based solutions, feels Shiva, may work, but that would need heightened sensitivity and social participation. “Rapists should be tried by society,” suggests Shiva. “Each time a woman is raped, the photograph of the rapist should be published in newspapers so that people don’t marry their daughters to him.” It sounds extreme, but extreme crimes may sometimes require extreme solutions.