This blog is part of a series on crimes against women, and current legal and administrative safeguards. The first blog can be found here.  

In my last blog I had highlighted the different kinds of crimes against women and the fact that these crimes are interrelated. The main question is whether the solutions to rape can be found in an isolated fashion, without considering the best way to tackle other interrelated crimes that were described in the previous blog. To address this question, one needs to look at the patterns in the numbers of crimes reported and the action taken on them.

Undertaking an analysis of the crime statistics is a tedious task. As related in last week’s blog, there are a bewildering array of crimes against women under several separate legislations. Though many of these are interrelated, the effort to bunch them together on the basis of their similarity is not undertaken in detail. Instead, in most cases, the data is presented for each piece of legislation, even though the crime concerned is similar to another, which is classified under a separate law. 

In order to overcome these impediments, I undertook a classification on the basis of the nature of the crimes reported and came up with seven categories of crimes against women, and related crimes against children. Each category in turn comprises several different crimes, which may or may not be treated under the same law. 

I formed seven categories of crimes against women as follows (Table 1):

Cruelty within the family including dowry related cases and causing miscarriage, and abetting suicide	Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961
	Dowry Deaths (Sec. 304B IPC)
	Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act
	Cruelty by Husband or his relatives (Sec. 498 A IPC)
	Abetment to Suicide of Women (Sec. 305/306 IPC)
	Miscarriage (Sec. 313 & 314 IPC)
Rape and rape-related cases	Murder with Rape/Gangrape
	Rape of Women (18 yrs and above)
	Rape of Girls (Below 18 yrs)
	Attempt to rape Women (18 yrs and above)
	Attempt to rape Girls (Below 18 yrs)
	Child Rape (Sec. 4 & 6 of POCSO Act) / Sec. 376 IPC)
	Sexual Assault of Children (Sec. 8 & 10 of POCSO Act) / Sec. 354 IPC)
Trafficking	Human Trafficking (Sec. 370 & 370A IPC)
	Procuring, inducing Children for the sake of prostitution (Section 5)
	Detaining a person in premises where prostitution is carried on (Section 6)
	Prostitution in or in the vicinity of public places (Section 7)
	Seducing or soliciting for purpose of prostitution (Section 8)
	Other Sections under ITP Act
	Selling of Minor Girls (Sec. 372 IPC)
	Buying of Minor Girls (Sec. 373 IPC)
	Sexual Harassment (Sec. 12 of POCSO Act) / Sec. 509 IPC)
	Use of Child for Pornography/Storing Child Pornography Material (Sec. 14 & 15 of POCSO Act)
Assaults and insults to the modesty of women	Assault on Women with Intent to Outrage her Modesty (Total)
	Insult to the Modesty of Women (Total)
Acid attacks	Acid Attack (Sec. 326A IPC)
	Attempt to Acid Attack (Sec. 326B IPC)
Other offences against children	POCSO Act (Sections 17 to 22) / Other offences of POCSO Act
	POCSO Act  r/w Section 377 IPC / Unnatural Offences
Cyber crimes and indecent representation of women	Publishing or Transmitting of Sexually Explicit Material [Sec. 67A/67B (Girls) IT Act]
	Other Women-centric Cyber Crimes (Ex. Blackmailing/ Defamation/Morphing/Fake Profile)
	Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986

 

Using this categorisation, a study of the patterns of crimes against women became readily apparent, as detailed in Table 2.

Table 2: (Please note: Table numbers refer to the tables contained in the crimes statistics)

Category of crime	Cases reported	No. of victims	Crime rate	Percentage of cases reported
Cruelty within the family including dowry related cases, dowry deaths, causing miscarriage, domestic violence and abetment to suicide	1,28,370	1,32,045	21.93	35.67
Assaults and insults to the modesty of women	93,452	95,576	15.87	25.97
Kidnapping and abduction of women	66,333	68,735	11.42	18.43
Rape, gangrape, attempts to rape and rape of children	66,217	68,078	11.31	18.40
Trafficking	3,906	5,123	0.85	1.09
Other offences against children	763	772	0.13	0.21
Cyber crimes and indecent representation against women	625	640	0.11	0.17
Acid attacks	183	183	0.03	0.05
Total	3,59,849	3,71,152	61.64

 

When related crimes are put together, the real dimension of the problem of rape stands out. According to the NCRB report, rape crimes account for only 7 percent of all crimes against women However, the moment that rape related crimes are taken together, such as gang rapes, rapes of children, that are prosecuted under the POCSO act, and attempts to rape are added, 18 percent of all crimes against women fall into this category.

A further break up of all cases that fall within the ‘rape related’ category that I had put together, reveals the following pattern. (Table 3)

Category of crime	Cases reported	No. of victims	Crime rate	Percentage of cases reported
Rape of Women (18 yrs and above)	22,500	23,437	3.9	33.98
Child Rape (Sec. 4 & 6 of POCSO Act) / Sec. 376 IPC)	17,382	17,597	2.9	26.25
Sexual Assault of Children (Sec. 8 & 10 of POCSO Act) / Sec. 354 IPC)	11,899	12,224	2.0	17.97
Rape of Girls (Below 18 yrs)	10,059	10,221	1.7	15.19
Attempt to rape Women (18 yrs and above)	3,697	3,907	0.6	5.58
Attempt to rape Girls (Below 18 yrs)	457	465	0.1	0.69
Murder with Rape/Gangrape	223	227	0	0.34
Total	66,217	68,078

While rape of women above 18-years-old constitutes nearly 34 per cent of the cases reported, rapes of minors and children constitute 59.5 per cent of all cases. Clearly, children and minor girls are very vulnerable and are victimized. 

What emerges is the clear pattern of most crimes against women arising from the domination of men over women. Rape is the most heinous form of such domination, but the stage is set through cruelty, often at home, assaults, abduction and trafficking. Rape does not occur in isolation of these, and the numbers of rapes are significant, even though it is not readily apparent from the crime statistics.