Premium
Street Violence against Women in India: Mapping Prevention Strategies
Author(s) -
Bhattacharyya Rituparna
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
asian social work and policy review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.286
H-Index - 13
eISSN - 1753-1411
pISSN - 1753-1403
DOI - 10.1111/aswp.12099
Subject(s) - government (linguistics) , commission , economic justice , corporate governance , criminal justice , criminology , qualitative research , political science , prime minister , public administration , law , socioeconomics , sociology , social science , politics , management , philosophy , linguistics , economics
Street violence against women ( SVAW ) in India is highly under researched. This article aims to understand the contextual factors responsible for the occurrence of SVAW in five cities of North‐east India: Agartala, Kohima, Imphal, Shillong, and Guwahati. The aftermath of an horrific gang rape and the subsequent death of a 23‐year‐old woman in a moving bus in New Delhi in December 2012 served as a wake‐up call for the Government of India ( GOI ), augmenting the need to understand the issues of SVAW . On December 23, 2012, the GOI constituted the Justice Verma Committee ( JVC ) who prepared a 630‐page report, submitted to the Prime Minister of India, which identified “failure of governance” as the central cause of SVAW . Based on some of the recommendations of the JVC report, the GOI passed the Criminal Law Amendment Bill, 2013. Drawing upon semi‐structured interviews from qualitative research in combination with a questionnaire survey, this research aims to understand the factors that allow SVAW to persist. Using recommendations of the JVC report and the Justice Usha Mehra Commission, the Criminal Law Amendment Act, [, 2013], as well as research findings, this article is an attempt to inform prevention strategies aimed at escalating the safety of women in public spaces of the study region.