"Women Cannot Be Punished For Adultery"

A woman, even if she is involved in an illicit relationship, cannot be punished for adultery and is treated as the victim under law.

And the National Commission for Women (NCW) has shot down proposals for amending Section 497 so that women can be prosecuted for adultery.

The Commission had been asked by the Centre to review Section 497 which does not envisage prosecution of the wife by the husband for adultery.

The section provides expressly that the wife shall not be punishable even as an abettor, based on the reasoning that the wife, who is involved in an illicit relationship with another man, is a victim and not the author of the crime.

According to NCW sources, the Commission does not feel that by merely prescribing punishment for women by amending Section 497, the marriage can be protected or saved.

The NCW has forwarded its recommendations to the government, in which it has stated that considering the relatively socially disempowered position of women, the Commission suggests no amendments to Section 497 of IPC.

The existing provision in the IPC is based on the mindset that the wife is a personal possession of the husband, who is the sole aggrieved person in an incident of adultery.

The Commission has, however, recommended suitable amendments to Section 198(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPRC), which as of now disqualifies the wife of an unfaithful husband from prosecuting him for his promiscuous behaviour.

It has told the government that as the wife already can take action against her husband under various other legal provisions, such as Section 498A of IPC, there is no reason that she should be debarred from initiating prosecution under Section 198 of CRPC.

The wife, in such cases, ought to be the person aggrieved and competent to file a complaint under Section 198.

In another important recommendation, the Commission has said adultery should be treated as a civil wrong and not a criminal offence.

It is of the view that there may be many instances where the woman wants to save the marriage and sees the adulterous relationship as an aberration.

The issue of adultery should be viewed as a breach of trust and be treated as a civil wrong rather than as a criminal offence.

The NCW has, however, said this should be done only after a national consensus is formed on the issue.

"Delhi Police Official's Daughter Found Burnt For Dowry"

Ghaziabad, April 2 The daughter of a Delhi Police sub-inspector was allegedly burnt alive by her in-laws in Ghaziabad Thursday for not getting dowry, her family members said. The police are investigating the case.

Babli, 26, - daughter of Delhi Police sub-inspector Atar Singh - was married to Dev Raj on June 18, 2004. While Atar Singh's family stayed at Indirapuri colony in Loni, Dev Raj lived at Balramnagar in the same area.

On Thursday morning, the police were informed that Babli was lying dead in her husband's house with extensive burns. Babli's parents were also informed and reached the spot.

Babli's husband and in-laws were missing from the house when the police reached.

Babli's brother Rishi Raj said his sister was constantly harassed by her in-laws for dowry.

He said Babli had been turned out of her husband's house many times in the past to bring money and various articles from her father. She had called her father Wednesday night and told him that her in-laws were conspiring to kill her, he said.

Babli's father filed a complaint at the Loni police station but the police were yet to register a case till Thursday night.

However, senior officials assured the fanmily and media that the police were taking action.

"We are looking out for the girl's husband and his family. They would be taken to task. The matter is under investigation," Anant Dev, the superintendent of police (city), said.

"Fighting India's Dowry Crime"

India's illegal dowry system is still thriving, leaving women vulnerable to abuse, sometimes even murder. Adam Mynott asks if new police powers to combat violence against brides are proving effective.

Vimla Mehra tours the offices round the women's crime unit in south Delhi every morning.

As police superintendent in charge of the unit, she likes to keep in touch with what is going on.

Inside each cramped office is a desk and, round the walls, half a dozen chairs.

These chairs are occupied from dawn till dusk by warring families.

Wives have turned up to accuse husbands of mental torture and beatings; mothers and fathers accuse their sons-in-law of theft or of demanding dowry payments with menaces long after the wedding.

Husbands are claiming their wives have been cheating on them.

In the middle a police officer - usually a woman - listens patiently as the exchanges pick up from annoyance to anger to fury.

Occasionally, she will intervene to try to calm the shouting and the screaming.

Soaring crime

The Crime Women Cell, tucked away behind a gudwara (a Sikh temple), just off the inner ring road in south Delhi, was set up to help protect women in male dominated Indian society.

Crimes against women have soared in the past 10 years.

There were nearly 150,000 recorded in 2000 by the National Crimes Record Bureau, up from 130,000 in 1998, and many more crimes are committed than recorded.

These are serious crimes: murder, rape and assault.

Mrs Mehra says: "The main problem is dowry. I don't know why, but more and more women come to us.

"Husbands are demanding things - a scooter or some money - it's one of the easiest ways to get money."

She has seen it all and says that the growing middle class in India is fuelling the demands for dowry cash and gifts.

"They have more, and they want more."

'Bride burning'

Mrs Mehra's police unit has just been given new powers to arrest and detain suspects.

Until now they were mainly a counselling and advice service.

But the task is overwhelming.

Delhi has a population of 14 million; the Crime Women Cell has one van to answer calls.

It can take two hours to get to the other side of the city and they rely on co-operation from a police force that is riddled with corruption and inefficiency.

The pattern is familiar: a woman is burned to death in her kitchen; the police arrive; the family of the husband claim it is a "cooking stove" accident; the police are assisted towards this conclusion with a wad of rupees.

By the time the Crime Women Cell has weaved its way through the traffic jams and potholes of Delhi it is a done deal.

Corruption

Giving or receiving any dowry of more than 7,000 rupees (£90/US$150) is a crime in India.

But it is a law that is universally ignored and it is a problem that leads to the abuse and degradation, even the death, of women.

Despite the corruption and the bureaucracy, hundreds are convicted of dowry crime every year.

The main prison in Delhi, Tihar Jail, has a "mother-in-law" cell block, set aside exclusively for women who have killed or harassed their daughters-in-law.

It is full of elderly women, some of whom are serving 20-year sentences for murder.

Dowries are not going away. They are deeply ingrained in Indian society and are growing stronger, and the law prohibiting them is treated with contempt.

The police are powerless to stop it and even communities such as Muslims, who never used to give dowries, are now doing so with the inevitable sinister consequences.

"High Prevalence Of Child Marriage In India Fuels Fertility Risks"

Despite India's economic and educational reform efforts in the last decade, the prevalence of child marriage remains high, fueling the risks of multiple unwanted pregnancies, pregnancy terminations and female sterilizations, according to a new study led by a Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) researcher.

The study, led by Anita Raj, PhD, associate professor of Social & Behavioral Sciences at BUSPH, found that nearly half of adult Indian women, aged 20 to 24, were married before the legal age of 18, and that those child marriages were significantly associated with poor fertility outcomes, such as unwanted and terminated pregnancies, repeat childbirths in less than 24 months, and increased sterilization rates.

The study was published online in The Lancet and will be printed in an upcoming issue.

"The prevalence of child marriage remains unacceptably high," Dr. Raj and colleagues wrote. "These results suggest that neither recent progress in economic and women's development, nor existing policy or programmatic efforts to prevent child marriage and promote maternal and child health, have been sufficient to reduce the prevalence of child marriage in India to that of most other developing nations."

The study found that 44.5 percent of women ages 22 to 24 were married before age 18. More than one in five – 22.6 percent – were married before age 16, while 2.6 percent were married before age 13.

India, the largest and most prosperous nation in south Asia, raised the legal age for marriage to 18 in 1978. In the past 15 years, national policy efforts have been developed to increase educational and economic opportunities for girls and women, reduce child marriage and expand family-planning support.

The authors said that while there had been a slight reduction – 5 percent -- in the rate of child marriage compared with national data from 1998-99, the continued prevalence of the practice and its association with poor fertility outcomes highlights "the crucial need for increased family-planning interventions tailored to married adolescents."

"National economic development gains have inadequately targeted the most rural and poor populations, which might have hindered further reduction in child marriage," they wrote.

The study found that women who married younger than 18 were significantly more likely to report no contraceptive use before their first childbirth than were those who married as adults. Nearly half – 48.4 percent – of women who were married as children reported giving birth before they turned 18. Women married as children also were more likely to have had repeat childbirths in less than 24 months and to have had three or more childbirths, than those married as adults.

Child marriage also was associated with an increased prevalence of unwanted pregnancies and an increased prevalence of pregnancy termination, defined as miscarriage, abortion or stillbirth.

The study found sterilization rates were higher for women married as children than for those married as adults – 19.5 percent, compared to 4.6 percent. Overall, more than one in eight women, or 13.4 percent, had been sterilized.

Of those not sterilized, more than three-quarters reported no present contraception use, the research found.

"Increased prevalence of sterilization in young women married as children could be attributable to these women having their desired number of children at an earlier age, as indicated by their high fertility," the authors wrote. "However, our findings suggest that sterilization might also be the consequence of inadequate fertility control, which is evident from the increased risk of unwanted pregnancies in women married as children."

The authors recommend that existing intervention programs should be broadened to emphasize contraception other than sterilization, especially among young women who are married as children. They said such interventions also should include husbands and in-laws, "who might have more control of family planning."

Other authors on the study were Niranjan Saggurti, PhD, of the Population Council, New Delhi, India; Donta Balaiah, PhD, of the National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health, Indian Council of Medical Research, Mumbai, India; and Jay G. Silverman, PhD, associate professor of the Department of Society, Human Development, and Health, Harvard School of Public Health.

The study was funded by a grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Indian Council on Medical Research Indo-US Program on Maternal and Child Health and Human Development.

"High Prevalence Of Child Marriage In India"

A large proportion of women in India are married when they are still children and researchers have warned that such unions carry high risks of unwanted pregnancies and female sterilization.

UNICEF defines child marriage as marriage before 18 years of age and such practice has been increasingly viewed as a violation of human rights. Marriage at a very young age carries grave health consequences for both the girl and her children and it is well documented that adolescent mothers are more likely to experience complications such as obstetric fistula.

Researchers from UK analyzed data from a national family health survey that was conducted from 2005 to 2006 in India. The survey involved 22,807 Indian women who were aged between 20 and 24 at the time of the survey. Of these, 23 percent were married before they were 16, 44 percent were married when they were between 16 and 17, and 2.6 percent were married before they turned 13.

Women who were married as children remained significantly more likely to have had three or more childbirths, a repeat childbirth in less than 24 months, multiple unwanted pregnancies, pregnancy termination, and sterilization. Nearly all the women who were married before they reached the legal age of 18 reported that they used no contraception before they had their first child.

India introduced laws against child marriage in 1929 and set the legal age for marriage at 12 years. The legal age for marriage was increased to 18 years in 1978. While the practice of child marriage has decreased slowly, its prevalence remains unacceptably high, and rural, poor, less educated girls and those from central or eastern regions of the country are most vulnerable to the practice.

The findings indicate that child marriage affects not only adolescents aged 16 to 17 years, but also large numbers of pubescent girls aged 14 to 15 years, and show that existing policies and economic development gains have failed to help rural and poor populations. They attributed the high numbers of sterilization in young women married as children to them having their desired number of children at an earlier age. But it was also indicative of inadequate fertility control, which was evident from the high numbers of unwanted pregnancies among these women.

The researchers warned that sterilization might reduce condom use in such couples, which would heighten the risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. Child-marriage prevention programs should be broadened to include interventions for women married as children and men who might pursue children for marriage.