Once I read a funny quote ‘When rape is evident, enjoy it‘, but that may not be case now. After 377 what seems to be catching up is Gender neutrality in Rape. Ours is a society where there is not gender equality (leider) to which they wish to bring a law which is to be gender neutral. This ain’t some new law but rather refining the pre-existing one. So far the law on ‘Rape’ as been gender biased, and also with developing age there are new criminal advances fall outside the realm of this law. Hence it has become of importance that the new age crimes find an law to abide by.
As per the definition Rape the word ‘penetration‘ played quite big role. This made the law biased towards the females as it was naturally impossible for them to enact the act. Evidences are found that even men are raped by women but in absence of ‘penetration’ from the ‘attacker’ the current law does not apply. Though such an act wont always mean sexual violence but an assault it shall be. Thus all such crimes also need to brought to law.
Other crimes like sodomy, sexual harassment, fingering, insertion of foreign object, child abuse some how did not find proper representation in current law. Now as the government has decided that it needs to update itself to new age crimes, it plans to replace the word RAPE with Sexual assault to broaden the ambit of the law. What this means is that with this new inclusion the law can be slapped against any perpetrator of any gender.
Though it may seem nice that such law is being formulated, but there are many hurdles in the path. Rape comes in all shades, and bringing them all under a single umbrella of law is tough. For eg: there is no definite word on ‘marital rape’, which occurs daily all over India. How is that to be handled. Now with Delhi High Court Verdict for Homosexuals, there shall be provision made for man to man or women to women rape too. This is to do with the gender categorized. What about the ones who are still fighting for gender identity -the Eunuchs. The crimes against this community are highest esp acted by the law keepers. These people find no faith in the law as none encompasses them. When making gender neutral rape shouldn’t they be considered too?
Well the good part is at least there would be proper representation of the genders and hope the children find safety therein too. The fine tuning shall need some more time; as we need the society to grow rightfully. On lighter note the one’s with ‘Ankhonse Dareendagi tapaknewaalon‘ watch-out what drools in your eyes may fall under this law too.
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