Women's groups criticise Bill on communal violence

On the eve of International Women's Day, women's groups in the country demanded withdrawal of two Bills, scheduled to be tabled in Parliament during the ongoing session.

The Communal Violence (Prevention, Control, and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill, 2005, and Microfinance Sector Development and Regulation Bill, 2007, are being termed as anti-women and missed opportunities to improve the condition of women.

The Communal Violence Bill had been looked into by the Standing Committee headed by Sushma Swaraj and recommendations have been given. The recast Bill is now to be tabled. But the women's groups, who have been dissatisfied with the points raised by the Standing Committee, are not optimistic about the new version of the Bill.

The new Bill has not been put in the public domain for discussion either.

The need for a law on communal violence comes from the fact that conviction rate is virtually zero in communal as well as sexual crimes, says Malini Ghose of Nirantar.

Though scores of women in Gujarat riots were sexually brutalised in horrific ways, a majority of these crimes are not even recognised or defined by the Indian Penal Code.

"All the IPC gives us is Section 376 which gives a narrow definition for rape," women activists from Gujarat and Delhi said.

"How can a law, which has an abysmal conviction rate in peacetime, attempt to provide justice in a situation of mass crimes like a communal pogrom?" they asked.

"And yet, the Communal Violence Bill identifies no new crimes particular and unique to mass communal situations or multiple forms of sexual violence, falling back only on outdated definitions of the IPC. It makes no note of the need to develop evidentiary standards appropriate to a communally violent situation. How can women access police stations (for lodging FIR) and government hospitals (for medical examinations) when they are on the run fleeing violent mobs?'' the groups Vikalp and Parma from Vadodara and Nirantar, backed by 50 other organisations, asked.

On the microfinance Bill, the NGOs said that though it deals with women's groups, it does nothing to protect their interests.

"It has given regulatory powers to Nabard, which is itself a promoter of microfinance," they said, adding that interests of banks and corporates rather than women were addressed.