Explore giving gadgets to women to combat sexual violence: HC

Chennai: Deprecating rising sex crimes against women and the girl child, the Madras High Court has asked the central and Tamil Nadu governments to explore the possibility of providing gadgets to women to prevent sexual violence against them.

Noting that crimes against women and a girl child were shockingly rising every year, especially sex crimes, Justice N Kirubakaran batted for urgent measures to stop such heinous offences and asked the governments to explore giving gadgets to women.

Dismissing the bail plea of a duo accused in the rape-and-murder of a 60-year-old mentally-challenged woman, he said, “Sexual assault is a violation of privacy, dignity, and honour, causing a permanent scar and continuous agony in the mind of the hapless victim.”

The judge also raised several queries vis-a-vis rising sex crimes against women, to be answered by the central and state governments and the National Commission for Women (NCW). He impleaded the central government and the NCW in the case and directed them to file response to his queries.

Such queries include whether the spurt in sexual violence against women was due to fall in sex ratio or due to “sex starvation” among Indian men in view of various cultural and moral curbs and if the violence was owing to alcoholism.

Also, the court asked the central and state governments to spell out if the rise in sex crimes was due to easy accessibility of pornographic content through the internet and smart phones. The judge said culprits in sexual violence could neither be termed as “human beings” nor as “animals”, as even animals were noble in their own way.

Noting that sexual assaults on women continued unabated despite stringent laws brought in after the December 16 Delhi gangrape incident, he said the offences have to be analyzed and examined from psychological and sociological angles. The judge sought the response of the governments on his queries by January 10, 2018.