Recasting Citizenship for Development - File UPI

186 DEEPAK K. MISHRA AND VANDANA UPADHYAY
Table 8.9
Crimes Against Women: 2000–2002
Districts As % of Total Crime Per 10,000 Population
Tawang 8.97 1.103
West Kameng 2.80 0.402
East Kameng 8.54 1.985
Papum Pare 4.92 1.916
Lower Subansiri 6.43 1.091
Upper Subansiri 6.11 1.504
West Siang 9.59 2.987
East Siang 9.97 2.748
Upper Siang 8.02 1.298
Dibang Valley 8.53 2.142
Lohit 5.11 0.906
Changlang 4.24 0.558
Tirap 3.53 0.465
Arunachal Pradesh 6.89 1.595
Source: The Director General of Police, Government of Arunachal Pradesh, Itanagar.
Note: Calculations are based on average of three years—2000, 2001 and 2002.
It is difficult to draw conclusions regarding the security of women on
the basis of these official statistics, partly because they may reflect a trend
towards higher reporting of crimes rather than higher incidence, as the
legal and policing infrastructure in the state is at an early stage of development.
When we look at the composition of crimes against women during
2000–02, we find that 41.74 per cent of the total cases were of molestation,
28.18 per cent concerned kidnapping and 22.67 per cent rape; cruelty by
husbands and relatives accounted for 6.35 per cent. It may be noted that
the nature of rape, according to NGO activists, has undergone a change
in Arunachal Pradesh. In the past, there were many cases of rape in the
form of forced marriages, but in recent years, as elsewhere, rape is a brutal
assault on women.
Women typically become easy targets of violence in areas of prolonged
and chronic conflicts. In those parts of the state where there has been a
recent upsurge in insurgency, women face constraints not only in terms
of violence but also in terms of a denial of opportunities and options,
which would otherwise have been available to them under normal circumstances.
16 That there has been no documentation of the condition and
sufferings of women in these districts points to the fact that these violent
conflicts have seldom been seen through the eyes of the victims, particularly
women, even in the mass media and academic discourses.