Aug 26, 2024 09:00 PM IST
Three prominent recent cases have shown just how callously authorities typically respond when it comes to systemic questions involving women’s safety.
The nationwide tumult over the issue of women’s safety has underlined the less-than-satisfactory response of state authorities in dealing with crimes and patterns of behaviour that clearly fall afoul of the law but continue because of apathy. Three prominent recent cases — the Kolkata rape and murder of a doctor, the rape of two minor schoolgirls in Maharashtra’s Badlapur, and the damning disclosures made by the Justice Hema committee on the underbelly of the Malayalam film industry — have shown just how callously authorities typically respond when it comes to systemic questions involving women’s safety. In the first case, the state government failed to dispel the perception that key people allegedly involved in the crime had the protection and patronage of the authorities. In the second case, the police appeared to have taken it easy when the first complaint of sexual abuse was made and filed the FIR after four days. In the third case, a pernicious nexus between powerful men in the Malayalam film industry grew unchecked, resulting in the sexual, physical and mental exploitation of women artistes and professionals. In all three cases, the law to safeguard the safety of women was present, but the administrative will to implement it strictly was not.
This cannot stand. No conversation on women’s safety can afford to ignore the role of the police and the administration (or the lack of it). The response by the three state governments — spanning the political divide — show that authorities only acted when their hand was forced by mounting outrage and protests. In Kerala, for example, the Hema committee found that almost every woman professional in the industry knew about the patterns of abuse but was scared to speak out, indicating that the government had failed to create an enabling atmosphere for victims to speak out. Changing the scenario for women’s safety will need systems that are responsive and empathetic towards victims, and states have to take the lead in creating them.
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