India’s death penalty law alone can’t stop child rapes

There must be an overhaul of the criminal justice system to ensure greater accountability

An ordinance by the Indian government mandating death penalty for rapists of a child below the age of 12 is a swift move seeking to quell public furore following a spate of horrific rapes and murders of children across the country. The tightening of the so-called Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act fills a much needed void in the Indian legal system to tackle gruesome cases of juvenile rape. But such law alone cannot stop the menace, and for the ordinance to succeed by any measure, four factors must be considered.

First, the ambit of the new ordinance should be widened to include, at the least, all juvenile rape. The legal schism between rapes of those under and above 12 is currently wide open — one is punishable by death whereas the other could get up to 20 years in prison.

Second, in a country where the average rate of conviction in rape cases is only 30 per cent and where the tardiness of delivering justice is legendary, the mere provision of capital punishment will not deter such horror. More than 100,000 rape cases are pending in courts, and the foremost challenge is the timely and unbiased implementation of law. Only determined action by the federal and provincial governments can ensure a fair and fast trial where no offenders are protected due to their political allegiance, economic clout or social status.

Third, all sections of society also have a crucial role to play in fighting the social stigma often associated with reporting such crimes in violent patriarchal settings. Finally, there must be an overhaul of the criminal justice system to ensure greater accountability.

Four of the rapists of Nirbhaya were sentenced to death for her brutal rape-murder in 2012, but the sentence is yet to be carried out. The urgent need is therefore to address what has become a national emergency in its entirety, instead of issuing legislative candies to pacify an outraged nation.