Wednesday, July 11, 2018

By MRA_Ravi Mehra- Member - Save India Family- Chandigarh

Equal Rights Equal Justice - The need of an hour....

Laws are made by the man, for the man. It really sounds interesting, but practically Men are also one of the SUFFERERS of today when it comes to #Equal Rights Equal Justice.

India is one of the fastest cultivating nation not only in terms of populace but also in the fields of Science, Technology and Research, Artificial Intelligence, Health care, E-commerce, Telecom, etc. But there are still some knots which have been rooted so deep inside ultimately dragging and hindering the Nation’s growth and now a day’s tagging it one of the most “Dangerous Country for Women” due to high risk of healthcare, economic resources and discrimination, cultural, tribal, religious or customary rituals, sexual violence and harassment, non-sexual violence and human trafficking issues faced by many women leaving behind Afghanistan and Syria even.

As this report was published by Thomson Reuters Foundation, most of the experts including GOI also denies this report claiming that 548 sample sizes is too small and insignificant for any statistic, at least have surveyed more than 5 lakhs out of 130 Crore Indian population. Below are the some stats for your reference: -

1.     Total number of women in India- 586,470,000 (48.5%) out of total-1,210,190,000- (stats as on 2011- survey)
2.     No of people surveyed – 548
3.     No of Women from India region- 48 only

Like every coin has two sides, other side of the coin which I want to highlight is “Gender Inequality” which most of the time is kept aside due to social taboo, as our society never realize that silently Men also suffer issues like Domestic Violence, sexual harassment, rape, sexual assault and due to social stigma, embarrassment and shame, men are much likely to report being a victim.

 Then where is “Right to Equality for Men”?, Yes, folks you heard that correctly “Right to Equality for Men”.

Every Judicial process is important armour of judiciary and when it comes to Indian Judiciary, there is still wakeup call needed for the "Equal Rights and Equal Justice" for our society which is pretty much imbalanced at the moment. Article-14 of Constitution of India articulates: -

A. Right to Equality - A Fundamental Right -
1. It ensures the guarantees to every person the right to equality before law & equal protection of the laws.
2. It is not only right of Indian citizens but also right of non-citizens.
3. It phrases “The state shall of India.” no one is above the law. All are equal in eye of law.
4. Equality before law- “The state shall not deny to any person equality before the law."
5. Meaning of right to equality - safeguard citizens of India against any discrimination based on religion, race, sex, caste, colour or place of birth.  Right to equality also helps to bring about equal employment opportunities.  It also abolishes the evil practice of untouchability and also abolishes titles. It means that all will be treated as equality among equal and there will be no discrimination based on lower or higher class.

The powerful notion that gender must be viewed as a spectrum, as opposed to an end has unfortunately not yet been fully acknowledged. A 2010 study conducted in various cities in India found that nearly 19 % of the male population conceded that they were indeed subject to sexual harassment at their place of work. What calls for immediate attention is that our society completely fails to recognize that men too can be the victims of sexual harassment. Instead, it is regarded as a taboo and this silence gives rise to ignorance burying the widespread issue and muffling a hard stand against it.

Approximately 77 countries have legally addressed the issue and enacted gender-neutral laws. However, the Indian Parliament has constantly rejected the proposal of gender-neutral sexual harassment laws, in spite of the rising number of cases in this regard. Indian sexual assault laws have been framed in such a manner that the sections are limited to women and are out of the reach of male victims.

The Vishakha guidelines which strive against sexual harassment in work places -exclude men from the extent of sexual offences. The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013, indicates by its very name that it is applicable solely to women. But when it comes to men, there is no single law to protect their modesty, their dignity, honour and their fundamental rights.

Now, let me put an insight to the gender wise laws in India, our judiciary system has taken a deep consideration related to Laws relating to women in India, but always forget to give a single thought about the laws related men i.e. most ignored gender which states the following facts (Based on the below Link provided below)-

S.No
Laws in Favor of Women
Laws in Favor of Men
1
85 laws in favor of women
No law for men

Please go through the below link for all your reference for laws related to women:-


Even our Hon’ble Union Women and Child Development Minister Smt.Maneka Gandhi once said -All violence is "Male-generatedand what if there are cases where women are found guilty of doing crimes like adultery, domestic violence and sexual harassment etc. Then why there is no provision toEqual punishment to Equal Crimecommitted irrespective by any gender.


I will take you through the journey so far of so many schemes in India which are only meant for women.


S.No
Schemes in India
For Women
For Men
Objective of the scheme
1
Govt. scheme for girl child
Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana
Sukanya Samriddhi Account (Girl Child Prosperity Account) is a Government of India backed saving scheme targeted at the parents of girl children. The scheme encourages parents to build a fund for the future education and marriage expenses for their female child as a part of the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao campaign.
2
Helmet exemption to women
Women were exempted from wearing helmets in the most parts of country and at first place were because of the “sentiments of a particular community", Well most of the states are now a day’s keeping it as mandate to wear a helmet for women too due HC orders as they also declared it Women skull is not different from men.
3
Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Scheme
Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao (Save girl child, educate a girl child) is a personal campaign of the Government of India that aims to generate awareness and improve the efficiency of welfare services intended for girls. The scheme was launched with an initial funding of ₹100 crore (US$15 million).
4
One Stop Centre Scheme
1. The OSC will support all women including girls below 18 years of age affected by violence, irrespective of caste, class, religion, region, sexual orientation or marital status.
2. To provide integrated support and assistance to women affected by violence, both in private and public spaces under one roof.
3. To facilitate immediate, emergency and non - emergency access to a range of services including medical, legal, psychological and counselling support under one roof to fight against any forms of violence against women.
5
Women Helpline Scheme
The objectives of this Scheme are:-

1. To provide toll-free 24-hours telecom service to women affected by violence seeking support and information.


2. To help crisis and non-crisis intervention through referral to the appropriate agencies such as police/Hospitals/Ambulance services/District Legal Service Authority (DLSA)/Protection Officer (PO)/OSC.


3. To provide information about the appropriate support services, government schemes and programmes available to the women affected by violence, in her particular situation within the local area in which she resides or is employed.
6
Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana
It aims at providing free LPG connection to women below poverty line. It gained a lot of attention due to the social campaign and an appeal to the affluent class to give up LPG subsidy in favour of weaker classes.
7
Support to Training and Employment Programme for Women (STEP)
The Ministry has been administering 'Support to Training and Employment Programme' for Women (STEP) aims to provide skills that give employability to women and to provide competencies and skill that enable women to become self-employed/entrepreneurs.
8
Mahila E-Haat
Mahila E-Haat is an initiative for meeting aspirations and needs of women entrepreneurs. It is an online marketing platform for women, where participants can display their products. It is an initiative for women across the country as a part of ‘Digital India’ and ‘Stand Up India’ initiatives.

Apart from these there are so many other government schemes for women only and men are born and living with the curse as there is no Right to Equality for them. Our government is always busy and promoting the #BetiBachaoBetiParao and missed #BetaBachaoDeshbachao on same side and till date never thought of launching any schemes for men in distress even.

Question will keep on arising always:-

1. Does men don’t need schemes like “One Stop Centre”, “Mahila E-Haat”, “STEP” , “Sukanya Samriddhi Yojna” and why there is not any helpline number for men who also face violence, torture and threats.

2. Isn’t this Inequality where our government fails to launch #BetaBachaoDeshBachao like programs to save men and their families from #fake cases? 

Men continues to suffer the stigma of being a rape-case accused or being allegedly accused in any other false cases due to absence of any Ministry or laws to protect men.

As our legal system doesn’t have any law where they can punish the guilty not the gender even if case is proven false. I think it’s a high time to take a stand for a man and wake-up call needed for government of India to introduce the #Gender-Neutral laws.

Even the Hon’ble Supreme court has mentioned that women nowadays have been misusing the numerous laws and becoming the national threat to society as men/husbands and their family members are being ill treated as they are being falsely implicated along with their family members.

Do you guys know that every 08 minutes a married man commits suicide and sadly the trend is ever increasing now. Supreme Court has accepted filing a Fake Case asLegal Terrorismas marriages has become only legal way of extorting the money from husband and his family. Ensuring Equal justice, particularly to all men who are falsely trapped in cases like rape and dowry which are far away from the justice, because of economic, social and other reasons, is also one of the those needs.

Seriously, question always arises, did India become country of Women appeasement or empowerment and women eccentric laws only if Equal Rights and Equal Justice is not dreamed, where thousands of mothers and sisters of husband have been thrown behind the bars on just mere allegations stated by another women on false complaints, which are favoured by several laws in our Judicial system or I would say our government is constantly ignoring the biggest workforce of our nation i.e. MEN and has no focus on saving them.

Before leaving, I will leave the ball in government court and public of India to decide whether Equal Rights and Equal Justice are required for men or not?

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2 comments:

By MRA_Ravi Mehra- Member - Save India Family- Chandigarh

Equal Rights Equal Justice - The need of an hour.... Laws are made by the man , for the man. It really sounds interesting, but practic...