Indian Law for Protecting Women

Can you imagine a world where there is no injustice carried out against women? Hard to imagine, isn’t it? In developing countries like India, a woman is not always treated as an equal at home or at the workplace. A woman in India continues to battle issues such as social prejudices, gender discrimination, domestic violence, and harassment in different forms, all of which violate her basic rights. Indian laws aim to protect women and their interests.

Indian Law: A Critical View on the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005

Indian law is enacted by the legislature. The Indian government developed the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, mostly because of global pressure from other countries and women rights activists. However, five years later, the Act is still not implemented and remains an unviable proposition. The Act, which was developed with a purpose of prohibiting marital violence, protects women from any form of abuse and provides for them to be taken care of. In practice, however, there are many reasons why the provisions seem impractical.

To begin with, there are several shortcomings in the Act. Firstly, it largely ignores the ground realities of overwhelming spousal abuse. On the administrative front, there is a need for state wise recruitment of legally trained protection officers, register service providers and adequate medical facilities for the victims.

The other problem is that the Act pays no attention to the violence committed against a woman in a joint family by another female family member. However, recently the Delhi High Court held that a woman can also be held liable for violence against another woman. The court stated that absence of such a provision under the Act may promote men to encourage other female members of a family to become aggressive towards a woman.