Dedicating a day for women or celebrating their life is never the need of a woman. What it requires is respect and equal rights for her voice.
A worst thing that can happen to a woman is to be sexually assaulted. The fundamental rights enshrined in the constitution and guaranteed to all its citizens are nullified here, where the Government fails to grant freedom of life and safety to the female gender.
May it be ‘Jyothi Singh’, Kathua rape case of a minor or Hathras case or any other victim who battled with life like a living corpse, who were vilified as victims or those who were treated shabbily in death as in life; their own body was treated like an object by the culprits. How then sentencing them capital punishment would be considered as a sin or inhuman?
Women’s rights are declared as human rights; but unfortunately this is a sarcastic connotation where this second gender cannot voice for their existential rights in the court of human law. So only by ensuring the rights of women and girls across all the goals, will they get justice and inclusion.
To celebrate a day for girls requires a clarion call for giving them their own stand and voice; but in the true sense to what extent, it is feasible. Winning rights for women demands the involvement of winning the hearts and minds which is a big failure from the humanitarian point of view.
The future of women’s rights is at a stake. The focus on punishment comes at the cost of focus on the pain of a victim. The physical, mental and emotional pain gives rigorous torture to a victim which shatters the girl from within. Rape is treated on par with terror still the conviction cases remain abysmally low. A fever should develop to arouse the certainty of punishment. The Hyderabad case of a Vet gave a hope to the common mind and the other victims when the conviction was granted in the form of encounter which was much more than effective.
Religion and politics should not be allowed as a game-checker to select the victim and to protect the accused. Human mentality should generate some spine to give immediate justice to the cry of the sufferers.
Death penalty might not prove to be an effective deterrent or it might not reduce the crime rates but atleast it can provide a sense of solace and relief to the victim who has to undergo this pain till the last breath of their life.
The Government and the policymakers should widen the scenario of securing integrity and even-handedness for the women. No more the days should scroll on shedding tears and curiously waiting for the Day of Judgement. Every course of action needs to be implemented to give the women a prioritized life where impartiality is maintained.
Talking about sex and sex crimes can be considered as taboos and it can be brushed under the carpet in many parts of the country but is humiliating the victim with every hearing of her case and strangulating her dignity and identity. Pain is something more terrible than that. How then demanding justice for this pain or convicting the accused with capital punishment is not justifiable by many intelligent minds of the law makers?
The Covid-19 pandemic has underscored society’s reliance on women both on the front line and at home, while concurrently exposing structural inequalities across every sphere, from health to the economy, security to social protection; still the young mass across the world are developing a digital activism campaign, aiming to raise the diversity of girls’ voices and their vision for a re-imagined future.
(Dr Das is an author on gender-based and social-based issues. She is a Post-Graduate English Teacher by profession. Subhashree.das1201@gmail.com)