Men cry too! Discriminatory Statutes and need of developing Gender Neutral Laws

 

Abstract:

The issue of fake sexual violence and dowry cases are increasing. If all the laws will only protect women from their perpetrators, then what about men? Who will shield them? What happens to our justice delivery mechanism and the policy of "fair access to justice" when the lives of hundreds of innocent men are ruined on account of fake accusations. This article talks about how the benevolent provisions of law which were made to shield women are used as a weapon; how  difficult it is for our society and authorities to think about Male rights and their protection, as we have seldom given a thought about it. Why is it so hard to believe that a Man can never be wronged? Why they are only thought to be the wrongdoers and not at the receiving end? And many more such questions are waiting for being answered. The Constitution of India provides Right to Equality as a Fundamental right, but what happens to the rights when a false case is filed against a man? The media trial makes the man guilty until proven innocent. Many lives are destroyed, families are ruined, dreams come crashing down and most importantly a man looses his dignity in society. The trauma one faces when nobody listens to their side of the story is beyond explanation, when men get systematically harassed by the laws of land. It is the need of hour to develop Gender neutral laws as there are more than 40 laws made for the protection of women, but not a single law for safeguarding men. Let’s visualise together a just society where Men and Women are equal partners with  a sensitive heart who listen to each other and work towards the development of society and the country.

A lot of times we only visualize men to be the perpetrators of crime against women but never imagine them at the receiving end. Talking about their harassment; it is an issue which gets brushed aside under the carpet. We as a society never comprehend that a man can also be harassed and tortured, as the expression of "Mard ko dard nahi hota" is deeply rooted in our minds. 

In the contemporary time and environment, there are a large number of people who just want to talk about women rights issues and the feminist movement. Be it any political party, organisations, media houses put up all the news about women getting harassed, molested, being wronged. But what about the rights of Men? This very notion might be illogical for many of us! Men? Are you serious? How can they ever be wronged? Aren't they the ones who have been perpetrators for so long?  Making our society full of patriarchal and misogynistic mind-sets! 

The very idea of Men's rights makes us ask these questions in the first place. For me Women and Men are equal and I support the feminist movement as well, but the mere fact that I'm writing this article doesn't make me anti-women rights supporter. I believe that Justice is a right of every individual regardless of their gender. Talking about the laws sadly we don't have a single statute in the country which talks about and protects a man from the harassment at the hands of their female counterparts and the laws make it hard for them to swim across the gender-based discrimination. It is high time that there should be gender-neutral laws which needs to be developed in the country. 

Misuse of laws is an important issue in the country, they are used by women out of greed, revenge or personal vendetta against the innocent men. Laws like dowry prevention, sexual harassment, molestation, rape laws etcetera are only made for women and are capable of being misused. Our country and previous government never felt the need of having laws for the protection of men. As per the current laws, there are 40 plus statutes which are for the protection and safeguard of women;  sadly not a single law protecting men from women. Do you know what the strange part is? These laws are the benevolent provisions to protect "women the weaker sex" which is not true in the present scenario.

Well, the laws which were supposed to be the armour has now become the sword for women.  According to a data which was published by Delhi Commission of Women in 2014 said that 53.2% of the cases against men were falsely registered from the period of April 2013 to July 2014, after that no reports are there on the records, why? This is an important question to be asked. 

In the landmark judgement of Rajesh Sharma v. The State of Uttar Pradesh, which was a pure case of misuse of dowry laws against the husband who was innocent and the case was solely filed out of vengeance. The Supreme Court of India recognized how the penal provisions were misused and sought to bring back the initial objective of the statute so that the basic human rights of the men were not overshadowed. But the judgement of the case had to be reviewed because a number of women NGOs started filing the petition and pleaded against it.

Women who are wronged should get justice as a matter of right, but all I am saying is one should not just turn a blind eye upon the rampant misuse of laws done to the misery of men. False accusations not only make men suffer but it also makes women endure humiliation when they genuinely go to register their cases, as they are asked inappropriate questions by the report maker, just because our police officials believe half of the time the reported cases are wrong. 

After Nirbhaya there was a total reconstruction in the justice delivery mechanism, the fast track courts were constituted thankfully due to this 70% of the men who were charged of all sort of false accusations were acquitted. Is it a good sign? A big NO! Is it good when your side of the story is not heard? It is traumatic, families get ruined, men lost jobs, reputation and in most cases they commit suicide. Can we give them back their dignity? An individual's reputation is his property more valuable than any thing.  Surprisingly no media channel covered this news.

Men from their very small age are told to study hard, make a good living so that one day they have to be the bread earner of the family; they are under a constant pressure to fulfil their roles. If we talk about the equality of roles, then why do we only imagine women working in big MNCs and why not the men doing the household chores? There is a stigma attached with the concept of a man being a house husband as people and the society start questioning his manhood. A man has to stick to his 10 to 5 job and there is no other option; on the other hand if a women works after marriage she is independent and if choose not to work she is the women of the house, a home maker. Why can't the roles be reversed? Why can't a man be the man of house? 

But if you think that people who hate each other only file false cases out of revenge then you are highly mistaken. Couples having consensual sex and living in cohabitation also file a false rape case on their partner if they don't marry them in future out of vengeance. There are instances when parents of the girl agree to cover and make it a rape case than to accept the shame of sexually active daughter. How is that even  rape? When people of consenting age agree to fornicate. 

Only these instances make such a grave issue like rape to a common offence. National Crime Record Bureau said out of 38,947 rape cases in India a baffling one fourth were recorded because of false promise of marriage. Ministry of home affairs published a data of 2018 where 34,000 cases were reported out of which  85% led to charges and 27% to convictions. Further, there are also data about false sexual harassment at workplace and dowry cases. 

Surprisingly the string of wrongs are not only against the grown up men, but the male children are also wronged in their formative years. According to an article published by The Guardian, a film maker was asked by the Indian government in 2018 to conduct an online survey to study about male child survivors of sexual abuse. This survey saw that 71% of 160 male respondents were sexually abused as a child. Thankfully the Government finally showed some concern as before 2018 only an in-depth research was done in the year 2007 by Ministry of women and child development where out of 53.2% children who faced some sort sexual assault 52.9% were boys. There was never a specific comprehensive research regarding the male child survivors before 2018. We as a society do not believe that even men can be raped and that is why most of the victims choose to be silent than to open up. We never tell them it's okay to be not okay, we are here to help you; please speak up. let the world know about you that you are not a victim but a survivor. The law which talk about child sexual abuse like POCSO is there but what about sexual abuse of adult males? It finds its existence in sodomy laws.

Talking about the sexual harassment at work place, the false allegations have seen a boost here too. Last year the Delhi High Court in one of it's kind judgement of Anita Suresh v Union of India & Or’s (2019) imposed a 50,000rs fine on the woman who filed a fake sexual harassment case at workplace. 

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) defines, “sexual harassment as unwelcome sexual advances or verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature that has the effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, abusive or offensive working environment”. In the definition nowhere it is mentioned that only women can be harassed and not the men, but the law which we have in  India explicitly mentions, "THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT OF WOMEN AT WORKPLACE (PREVENTION, PROHIBITION AND REDRESSAL) ACT, 2013".  In 2018 a non-profit organization Stop Street Harassment did a survey in which 43% of reported men were actually facing harassment at work place. 

A Delhi court in the year 2018 went on to say that we should stop considering women always as victims and innocent on account of growing fake FIRs and other sexual crimes; further stated such cases should be dealt sternly. Thankfully, a man who has been allegedly accused of fake sexual harassment at workplace can go to the Internal Complaints Committee and ask for a notice of the complaint as well as cross examine the complainant as a matter of right. If it is subsequently found out that the allegations were fake, the women shall be punished the same way as he would have been punished. 

Let's talk about the anti dowry acts and domestic violence, NCRB said out of all the cases reported only 14.4% of the accused were convicted in 2012 if we juxtapose this data it means more than 80% of them were innocent. The Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961 was made to punish those people who demanded for dowry. In the year 1983 section 304B and 498A were introduced to make it convenient for the wives to file cases against the husband and in-laws on account of cruelty or any sort of harassment. These sections have a zero-tolerance rate which empowers the officials to immediately arrest and imprison the women's spouse and his family. The offence under this law is non-compoundable and non-bailable. The dowry harassment of women is, of course, depressing and affects the marriage adversely but we cannot turn a blind eye on the right of life and personal liberty of men. Not a single law or section talks about the recourse available to men if false cases are filed against them.

Most of the time the entire family is accused of dowry harassment which leads to the elderly parents and grandparents, siblings as well as the minor children getting roped into these kind of cases just because their names are included in the plaint. Cases how genuine they are can be traced when a Mumbai court granted bail to a two month old baby girl Zoya Khan. Last year 4 minor children were also booked for dowry harassment the eldest of them was 11 years old. How can a two-month-old girl child harass for dowry? Section 498 was introduced with a noble intention but it has led to families being ruined and making the lives of children miserable. Seeing the menace of ever increasing fake cases Supreme Court of India said the spouse and his family should not be arrested on account of marital discord unless the charges are corroborated and verified.

The men of our country are systematically harassed by the laws of land, as there is not a single law which seeks to protect and safeguard their interests. Our Constitution provides for equality of all before the law, then why can't we penalize everyone equally irrespective of their gender? It cannot be denied that women suffer a lot both physically and psychologically at the same time the fact that men do endure a lot cannot be ignored. It is high time that we start making "Gender Neutral Laws". A development in this area is really important as no one can imagine the agony of men and the day to day threats of facing false accusations. Even if a man musters some courage of speaking up about his sexual harassment, he is flooded with people questioning his manhood. We as a society need to understand that it is the crime which needs to be stopped, it can happen to anyone any soul regardless of age or gender. Any sort of sexual violence or fake accusations is an  attack on the soul, people loose their dignity in society, self-respect, jobs, dreams, families get ruined. Spreading the awareness and sensitizing people will bring this matter in more limelight and push the authorities in making Gender Neutral laws; only then the right of equality and fair access to justice will gain it's true meaning. 

This article has been published in International Journal of Law Management and Humanities From page 776-780. click on this link to access the journal.

Avinash Kumar