July 8, 2019
Our guest column is by disability rights activist Shampa Sengupta,
who takes an in depth look at why, despite adequate laws, the criminal
justice system repeatedly fails girls and women with disabilities. .
Indian laws, namely the Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act and
Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act have
separate sections on children with disabilities. Both are gender neutral, the
only criterion is the person has to under the age of 18. The 2013
Criminal Law Amendment Act (CLAA) also has sections on
disability, so both young girls and women are covered legally.
However, when one looks at their implementation, the picture is dismal. This
is because disability law is not a mandatory part of the training program for
the police, lawyers and courts – the primary institutions of the criminal
justice system. Systems in courts are not disabled-friendly either, which
means people with disabilities face physical and attitudinal barriers within
the judiciary system. The problem increases for women due to the patriarchal
mindset.
In 2012, after the Delhi gangrape case, also known as the Nirbhaya
case, the government formed the Justice Verma
Committee after public pressure. This gave the disability movement
the first opportunity to address specific concerns of women with disabilities
in policy. We presented this to the committee and the suggestions were used
in POCSO as a model. As a result, the CLAA Act included several clauses
addressing disabilities, similar to POCSO.
Moreover, the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPWD) Act
of 2016 also contains specific clauses regarding protection from abuse,
torture and sexual violence. However, when it comes to implementation, there
is lack of knowledge and poor execution.
Take POCSO. As activists working on the ground level we find there’s
barely an implementation of the Act when it comes to disabled children. In
some states, child friendly POCSO courts have been set up but most of them
are not on the ground floor, so access for children with mobility issues is
a problem. In West Bengal, even the office of the Child Rights Commission
is not accessible. When this was pointed out, the chairperson said making
changes to the building structure was not possible as the space was rented.
Moreover, POCSO says courts must have special educators or people familiar
with the manner of communicating with a child, or an expert to record
evidence. There should be sign language interpreters who can be called in at
a moment’s notice. Most states fail on this count. Lack of knowledge and
poor attitude of professionals working for disabled children is a problem
too. At a workshop, many special educators confided that they do not want to
take up such duties when called upon by the police. Besides, the training
does not include essential components of sexuality education. So they were
both unwilling and ill equipped.”
When it comes to disabled women, the law gives them the “right to record
their statement with police in the safety of their home or a place of their
choice”. This would bring great relief to any disabled women who faces
sexual violence. However, till date, we have not found this being implemented
in any state. In the case of a 19-year-old rape survivor with multiple
disabilities in Hooghly district, West Bengal, we found that the police not
only forced the her to visit the station to record the complaint, but made
her sit there all night. Her mother was also detained. When we asked the
police why, the explanation was they were detained to be sheltered from the
rapists.
It is beyond our understanding why a disabled young woman and her mother have
to stay at the police station all night if they go to report a case of sexual
abuse. Leave alone this case, we have not found a single case when the police
visited a woman’s home to take her testimonials. This is because most
police officials have no idea about the law and there are not enough
personnel, especially women, to look into rape cases.
Our recommendations for governments for States and Centre is:
Sources:
The vulnerability of Children With Disability to Sexual Abuse
https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/04/03/invisible-victims-sexual-violence/access-justice-women-and-girls-disabilities
Source: https://newzhook.com/story/22762
