v) Anti-rape Movement

An anti-rape movement was launched in the last decade demanding review of the Supreme Court judgment in a rape case, which acquitted the culprit. Women activists forced the government to review Rape Laws. Several women’s organisations and legal and social activists held discussions with the Law Commission to amend the law and in 1983 Criminal Law (Amendment) Act was passed.

Nirbhaya case and Verma Committee

♤ Justice JS Verma Committee was formed in the aftermath of the Nirbhaya rape case.

♤ Some of the recommendations of the committee are:

o It sought comprehensive amendments to the criminal laws, seeking 20 years imprisonment for gang rape and lfie term for rape and murder.

o To implement police reforms to provide them with better autonomy, and for better functioning of the police force

o An officer who doesn’t report a FIR or delays it for a rape case should be punished

o It had framed a protocol for medical examination of a rape victim

o The government should tackle the issue of trafficking of children and it should also maintain data on the same

o All marriages in India should be registered mandatorily in the presence of a magistrate who would ensure that no dowry has been taken for the marriage

o It also argued to make marital rape a punishable offence

In the 1990s women took up the issue of communalism and globalisation through a wider networking both at the national and international level. At the beginning of the twenty-first century the women’s organisations in India are linked together through networks on different issues and campaigns. While former methods of protest and advocacy are still used, new methods of resistance and mobilisation for change are also being evolved.