According to Latest figures from the National Crime Records Bureau of, every hour at least two women are sexually assaulted and every six hours, a young married woman is beaten to death, burnt or driven to suicide. Violence occurs in about 35 percent of women globally in their lifetime. In a study done in India, on about 10000 women, 26 per cent reported having experienced physical violence from spouses during their lifetime.
Violence leads to mental disorders such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety disorders, self-harm and sleep disorders. women suffer social isolation, unemployment, income loss, poor self-care and fail to provide childcare, which is a grave concern.
But some cases of tortures reveal inhumanity to such an extent that one can confuse the act being even performed by Humans. One such case occurred in Delhi’s Trilokpuri area where a 32-year-old woman was held captive and bound down by iron chains by her husband in her own house.
The Commission’s Mahila Panchayat team got a tip-off from a ground volunteer who informed the Commission that the woman had been chained and was living in a miserable condition in the Trilokpuri area. The team immediately reached the spot and saw that the woman was lying on the floor with her feet bound down by iron chains. She was living in squalor with her clothes torn and tattered.
The victim said that her husband used to beat her brutally and she had been tied up in chains since the past six months. The room in which she was kept had no fans and had a terrible smell as she was made to lie in her own excreta. She had been married for the past 11 years and had three children from her marriage, moreover, his husband owns a flour mill and upon investigation, it was revealed that their children were eye victims of all the torture faced by their mother and also reported that the violence also affected the mental health of the woman.
The DCW team immediately freed her up and are working on getting the woman medical treatment. The Commission is also ensuring the registration of an FIR in the matter.
The cause behind such an inhumane act isn’t revealed yet and hopefully, will come out soon. But many questions arise.
Is physical dominance a sign of masculinity?
The answer lies in our mentality, we too somewhere become a part of all this as we hear of any such incident where a girl emerges to be of dominant nature and blames her husband for giving her so much freedom and questioning his masculinity. We really need to understand that violence done by anyone either boy or girl means an act of torture and the victim should not be gender blamed for this happening.
Does domestic violence impact children’s lives?
Not only does a victim spouse get affected by all such happenings but moreover this trauma has its great effects on children’s lives. Children who witness domestic violence or are victims of abuse themselves are at serious risk for long-term physical and mental health problems. Children who witness violence between parents may also be at greater risk of being violent in their future relationships.
