India dramatically tightens laws on sexual assault, trafficking after gang rape

NEW DELHI — India dramatically tightened its laws on sexual assault and trafficking Sunday, with a far-reaching package of measures rushed through to satisfy public opinion in the wake of a horrific gang rape of a young woman in the capital in December.

Women’s groups complained that the government had not gone far enough, particularly because it neither outlawed marital rape nor dealt with the legal impunity enjoyed by members of the country’s armed forces. But other activists said the new measures, which imposed much stricter penalties for a range of crimes, marked one of the most significant changes to laws protecting India’s women.

(The Washington Post/Source: India’s National Crime Records Bureau) - Rising incidents of rape in India

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With Parliament in recess and the government looking to move quickly, the changes were pushed through in an ordinance that was approved by the cabinet on Friday and signed into law by the president on Sunday. The measures go into effect immediately, but Parliament must ratify them within six months.

“This shows the intention of the government to take the issue very seriously,” said Bhuwan Ribhu, an activist who has spent the past decade fighting trafficking and child labor. “We now have to ensure this gets translated into law [by Parliament] and the law gets enforced.”

A panel’s recommendations

A high-level committee led by retired Chief Justice J.S. Verma was set up in the wake of nationwide protests over the rape of the 23-year-old woman in New Delhi and her subsequent death. The panel, which looked at ways to protect India’s women, went further than many people had expected by recommending sweeping changes to Indian law and governance. The government has accepted many of the committee’s recommendations.

In particular, India’s rape law has been changed to allow for tough penalties for all types of sexual assault. In the past, rape was defined as penetration only, and anything short of that fell under the ambit of criminal assault on a woman with “intent to outrage her modesty,” an offense that carried a light penalty. That provision was almost never enforced, leaving women vulnerable to, for example, groping on public transportation by men who knew they were unlikely to be prosecuted.

Separate offenses with strict punishments have been introduced for stalking, voyeurism, stripping a woman or carrying out an acid attack. For the first time, trafficking has been outlawed in India, with stiff penalties for the trafficker and for those employing people who have been trafficked.

In effect, that means anyone employing children as maids, a sizable proportion of the Indian population, could be jailed for at least five years, and the vast network of “placement agents,” who bring children from poor villages to work in India’s towns and cities, could be put away for at least 14 years. A police officer or other public servant found to have been involved in trafficking could be jailed for life.

The dramatic changes, if implemented, could serve as a deterrent to India’s huge child labor industry.

The ordinance went beyond Verma’s recommendations in just one area, with the government bowing to popular pressure to allow the death penalty in cases in which a rape leaves a woman in a persistent vegetative state.