1. Marital rape
Sec 375 of IPC: forceful sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being 18 years, is not rape.
Reasons to criminalize it:
- Basic rights of women violated, violation of FR art 21, art 14.
- Various judgements have recognized right to abstain from sexual activity for al women, irrespective of their marriage status: Puttuswamy vs UOI, Suchita Srivastava vs Chandigarh administration
- Justice Verma committee recommended criminalizing marital rape in 2012
- Marital rape denies women agency over their own bodies and strengthens patriarchy
- It is a colonial era mindset which promotes the doctrine of coverture: merging of women’s identity with the husband
- Defeats the very purpose of sec 375 of IPC.
Problems:
- Destabilizing the institution of marriage
- Impinge on the right to privacy
- Misuse of legal provisions can lead to fake reporting and harassment of the husband
Way forward:
- Focus should be on bringing behavioral changes through multistakeholder approach
- Need for gender neutral anti rape laws to recognize the same sex assaults among LGBTQ community
- Focus has to shift from morality to violence and need for choice.
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2. A budget that includes (Reforms in budget needed)
Budget: Article 112- statement of estimated receipts and expenditure of the government in a financial year.
- Focus on creating jobs for the unskilled through special focus on spending on infrastructure. Eg: national infrastructure pipeline
- Development of manufacturing sector eg: Bangladesh employs more than 4mn unskilled people in textile sector
Special investment in education and skilling:
- Under 5% workforce is skilled in India compared to 50% in US .
- NSDC has to set achievable targets
- Budget should incentivize the states by linking the flow of additional funds to those that demonstrate standard learning outcomes.
- Gender budgeting should be linked to outcome rather than done in an ad hoc manner
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