Pro-women's laws misused, say civil society groups

[sidmis]

Pro-women's laws misused, say civil society groups
as reported in Jansamachar

New Delhi, Aug 25 (IANS) Lashing out at the National Commission for Women (NCW) a day before Women Equality Day, two civil society groups Monday said that the pro-women, progressive legislations in the country were being misused, and demanded that the legislations be made gender neutral.

The Mothers and Sisters Initiative (MASI) and All India Forgotten Women (AIFW) in a joint statement said that the laws for the protection of women and their rights - like the legislations against rape and sexual harassment, adultery or domestic violence, divorce or child custody - should be made gender neutral.

The two organisations said that a Right to Information (RTI) application has revealed that information given by the NCW was false. NCW chairman Girija Vyas's statement that in 70 percent divorce cases men try to escape from providing maintenance to their former wives by alleging adultery, in response to the RTI application was found to be completely false and far fetched, they said.

Sandeep Bhartia of Gender Human Rights society, which helped both these organisations in logistics, said that an RTI filed by them last month revealed surprising results.

The NCW keeps making fleeting statements not backed with proper logistics and data. To their own claim that in 70 percent divorce cases men try to escape providing maintenance by alleging adultery, they responded to the RTI that they don't have any such data, Bhartia told IANS.

The organisations went on to say that the NCW grossly exaggerates data of dowry harassment, dowry deaths and domestic abuse in order to attract funds from foreign agencies like the United Nations Development Fund for Women (Unifem).

On the occasion of Women Equality day, the organisations want to say that in the name of women empowerment, lets not punish elders, children and innocent people who, without proper investigation, are arrested under the Domestic Violence Act, Dowry Prohibition Act and the likes."

All that we demand is that provisions of the Domestic Violence Act, adultery laws, laws against rape and sexual harassment and family laws (divorce, maintenance and child custody) should be made gender-neutral, Bhartia said on behalf of members of MASI and AIFW.

http://www.jansamachar.net/display.php3?num=13781

[karira]

As reported by Vineeta Pandey in dnaindia.com on 26 August 2008:
DNA - India - Saas, bahu and the bane of biased laws - Daily News & Analysis

Saas, bahu and the bane of biased laws

Mothers-in-law complain that the country’s heavily skewed legislations help filing of false cases against them

NEW DELHI: On the eve of Women’s Equality Day, women are pitted against women in India, demanding equal rights. Tired of facing false dowry and domestic violence charges, harassed mothers-in-law and sisters-in-law are now up in arms against government organisations for being heavily biased in favour of daughters-in-law.

Women NGOs representing the harassed mothers-in-law and sisters-in law have accused the National Commission for Women (NCW) and ministry of women and child development for not listening to their grievances and quoting wrong statistics to push through biased laws.

Two NGOs — Mothers And Sisters Initiative (MASI) and All India Forgotten Women — used the Right To Information (RTI) Act to establish their point. The move came against the backdrop of a statement made by NCW chairperson Girija Vyas who had said that in 70% of divorce cases, adultery is used to discredit the women and deny them maintenance rights. Vyas had made the statement while pursuing an amendment in Section 125 of CrPc which deals which maintenance for women. However, when the NGOs sought copy of records on the basis of which Vyas made such a statement through an RTI application, the NCW replied it had “no record which shows in 70% of maintenance cases under CrPc 125, adultery has been alleged and proved misused” by husbands.

Crying foul, these groups have sought the prime minister’s intervention, demanding gender-neutral laws and amendments through which misuse of dowry prohibition and domestic violence laws could be prevented.

“Politicians like women and child development minister Renuka Chowdhury and Girija Vyas are using such sensitive issues to fuel their political agenda. They make irresponsible statements which cannot be substantiated by any proof,” said Dr Anupama Singh of MASI.

However, Vyas defended herself saying: “It is true that NCW does not have such statistics but I said it on the basis of what we hear from police and courts. However, I am getting a research conducted on this issue.”

“Every five minutes, one innocent person is arrested in a false case, sans any inquiry. So many women are pushed behind bars as their disgruntled daughters in-law misused the law to settle scores,” said Preeti Chauhan of All India Forgotten Women.