Death penalty fast-food solution for rape: Experts
New Delhi: As public outrage mounted over the Unnao and Kathua rapes, Union minister Maneka Gandhi announced plans to introduce death penalty for rapists of children below 12 years. States like Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Arunachal Pradesh and Rajasthan have passed bills to this effect, while Maharashtra, Delhi and Karnataka are actively considering the proposal.
Experts, however, feel such reactions do more harm than good.
Child sex abuse, experts say, is a complex crime unlike murder — the societal taboo, under-reporting and hostility to the victim can lead to low conviction rates.
Anup Surendranath, director of the Death Penalty project at Delhi’s National Law University, describes death penalty as a fast-food solution for child rape.
“The demand for death penalty arises from disgust and society’s need for revenge, not out of a need to protect the child,” he says.
The provision, he says, will aggravate the problem of under-reporting of child sex abuse cases.
In 95 per cent cases, the perpetrator is known to the child. In such cases, the child is under severe pressure to not report the abuse. A recent fivestate study by Centre for Child and Law at National Law School of India University (NLSIU) on the Protection of Children Against Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) found that in 59 per cent of cases, children turned hostile. This is as high as 94 per cent in Karnataka. This, along with shoddy investigation, results in low conviction under what has been seen as a strong Act. In Maharashtra, of the 1330 judgments passed between January 2013 and December 2016, convictions were awarded in 257 cases — that is 19 per cent cases — with the acquittal rate being 81 per cent. In Delhi, of the 667 judgments between January 2013 and September 2015, conviction rate was less than 17 per cent. Only one in every six cases resulted in a conviction. The victim turned hostile in 67.5 per cent of the cases (450 cases) and testified against the accused in only 178 (27 per cent) cases. Bharti Ali from the NGO Haq: Centre for Child Rights says that in laws like POCSO where the minimum punishment is mandated, convictions become tough, especially in cases of incest.
“The severity of punishment holds children back from reporting and testifying,” she says. Legal researcher Swagata Raha who worked on the NLSIU study says, “When there are incidents such as this, the outrage is high. But the challenge for the government is to ensure that the system works.
Death penalty is already a provision but that has not been a deterrent against crime.”
The POCSO Act has provisions for special, child-friendly courts with in-camera testimony, child psychologists, protection officers and educators.
However, these are rarely implemented in states, resulting in hostile questioning by defence lawyers, threats by the perpetrators, and delays in registering of cases.