Recasting Citizenship for Development - File UPI

In the Name of the Community 185
ones, have been criticised for their neglect of this aspect of women’s wellbeing
(Hirway and Mahadevia 1996). Although the degrees and nature
of violence directed against women vary across regions, classes and cultures,
it is important to note that often women feel more insecure in cities
that are the most developed and have good communications.
There are various problems in quantifying the extent of violence directed
against women. First, for a variety of reasons, such as the attached
social stigma, distrust in legal mechanisms, fear of retaliation, et cetera, most
crimes against women go unreported. Second, it is often seen that some
forms of violence are justified within the structure of socially-sanctioned
value systems, beliefs and practices. Many of these forms of violence go
unnoticed and are scarcely recognised as crimes or violence. Domestic
violence, for example, is rarely treated as a crime, even by the victims
themselves. According to NFHS-II data, it has been found that domestic
violence is widespread even in the northeastern states. The study reveals
that in Arunachal Pradesh, of the total respondents, 61.5 per cent had
been beaten or physically mistreated at least once in the past 12 months,
while 13.1 per cent had been beaten many times during that period.
Tolerance and experience of domestic violence act as significant barriers
to women’s empowerment.
In Arunachal Pradesh, traditional community laws and institutions
continue to play a vital role in conflict resolution and administration of
justice at the village level. 15 The simultaneous existence, overlapping
spheres of action and fuzzy boundaries between the formal and informal
legal frameworks make the situation all the more complex. The incidence
of both reported crimes and crimes against women are by and large on
the rise. The share of crimes against women has gone up from less than
5 per cent of total crimes in the early 1990s to more than 6 per cent during
1998–2002. The distribution of crimes against women across districts is
highly skewed: West Siang reported 20 per cent, East Siang 15.25 per cent
and Papum Pare 14.83 per cent. In 2000–02, crimes against women, as a
proportion of the total crimes, was highest in East Siang, closely followed
by West Siang and lowest in West Kameng. When we estimate the rate of
crimes against women, that is, the number of reported crimes directed
against women per 10,000 population, West Siang followed by East Siang
and Dibang Valley have the highest crime rate, and West Kameng the
lowest (Table 8.9).