Category Archives: Minors

Sex Selective Abortion: PNDTA

Posted on by
Reply

Indian women have the right to abortion under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act provided that the decision is not based on the sex of the foetus. Parliament also enacted the Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques Act in 1994 – which, inter alia, requires sonography machines to be registered – to try to prevent female foeticide.

    The Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1994 provides ‘for the regulation of the use of Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques for the purpose of detecting genetic or metabolic disorders or chromosomal abnormalities or certain congenital malformations or sex-linked disorders and for the prevention of the misuse of such techniques for the purpose of prenatal sex determination leading to female foeticide‘.

    The Act provides for:

    • The regulation of genetic counselling centres, genetic laboratories and genetic clinics
    • The regulation of Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques
    • The obtaining of the written consent of a pregnant woman and the prohibition of communicating the sex of foetus
    • The prohibition of sex determination
    • The establishment of the Central Supervisory Board:
      1. to advise the Government on policy matters relating to use of Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques
      2. to review implementation of the Act and the rules made under it, and to recommend changes in the Act and its rules to the Central Government
      3. to create public awareness against the practice of prenatal determination of sex and female foeticide
      4. to lay down a code of conduct to be observed by persons working at Genetic Counselling Centres, Genetic Laboratories and Genetic Clinics
      5. to perform any other functions as may be specified under the Act
    • The appointment of Appropriate Authorities:
        1. to grant, suspend or cancel the registration of a Genetic Counselling Centre, Genetic Laboratory or Genetic Clinic
        1. to enforce the standards prescribed for a Genetic Counselling Centre, Genetic Laboratory or Genetic Clinic
        2. to investigate complaints of the breach of the provisions of this Act or the rules made under it and to take immediate action
        3. to seek and consider the advice of the Advisory Committee on applications for registration and on complaints for suspension or cancellation of registration
        • The establishment of an Advisory Committee for each Appropriate Authority to aid and advise the Appropriate Authority in the discharge of its functions
        • The registration of Genetic Counselling Centres, Genetic Laboratories or Genetic Clinics and the cancellation and suspension of such registration
        • The prohibition of advertisement relating to prenatal determination of sex and punishment for contravention

          The Act specifies offences under it and the punishments for those offences. Every offence under the Act is cognizable, non-bailable and non-compoundable. Notwithstanding anything in the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, the Courts are to presume, unless the contrary is proved, that a pregnant woman has been compelled by her husband or relatives to undergo a prenatal diagnostic technique and such persons are liable for the abetment of the offence.

          No suit, prosecution or other legal proceeding lies against the Central or the State Government or the Appropriate Authority or any officer authorised by the Central or State Government or by the Authority for anything which is in good faith done or intended to be done in pursuance of the provisions of this Act.

          The Central Government may make rules for carrying out the provisions of this Act. The Board may, with the previous sanction of the Central Government, by notification in the Official Gazette, make regulations not inconsistent with the provisions of this Act and its rules.

        The Act has, however, barely made a dent; sex-ratios in India are as skewed as ever.

        (Incidentally, healthy/normal sex-ratios show more women than men.)

        Domestic Violence Against Women and Children in the European Union

        Posted on by
        Reply

        Violence against women is a violation of human rights. It is one of the few phenomena which cuts across every imaginable cultural, political, socio-economic, ethnic, religious and educational boundary. However, recognising that gender equity and social development are inseparable, fighting gender-based violence has become a priority for governments and international organisations all over the world even though, for much of history, many forms of violence such as domestic violence — which this essay focuses on — were not only ignored but also legally condoned.

        The approach has changed and now, ‘the human right to a private and family life is of special importance, but cannot be tolerated to condone private conduct within families in which one partner enforces dominance by violence over the other. The key human rights principle is that violence deliberately directed against any other person is never a purely private matter’. 1

        1 The Legal Regime

        1.1 The basis of domestic violence legislation

        Violence against women is inextricably linked to issues of gender equality and gender mainstreaming. The preamble to the 1993 UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women clearly locates the roots of gender-based violence in ‘historically unequal power relations between men and women, which have led to domination over and discrimination against women by men and to the prevention of the full advancement of women, recognising that violence against women is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men’.

        In the European Union, the Commission first started work on gender mainstreaming in the early 1990s by developing a more consistent approach following the 1995 Beijing UN Women’s Conference2 which recognised ‘violence against women’ as a critical area of concern, acknowledged that violence against girls ‘begins at the earliest stages of life and continues unabated throughout their lives’, and reaffirmed commitments to the equal rights and inherent human dignity of women and men enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and other international human rights instruments such as the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child.

        Further, Article 2 of the EC Treaty states that the Community shall have as its task equality between men and women and Article 13 states that without prejudice to the other provisions of the (same) Treaty and within the limits of the powers conferred by it upon the Community, the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission and after consulting the European Parliament, may take appropriate action to combat discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation.

        1.2 The definition of domestic violence

        Domestic violence may be perpetrated by spouses, lineal ascendants and descendants and the lateral branch of the family up to the IV degree whether they are related by blood, marriage, fosterage or adoption, or by intimate partners or legal guardians.

        Within the European Union, violence within families, right from the denigration of honour, is considered to be domestic violence and is covered under the general provisions of penal codes even if it not explicitly mentioned therein. Moreover, the laws themselves have been amended and harmonised so as to remove obstacles in tackling the issue.

        For example, earlier definitions of rape exclusively spoke of extra-marital rape, and marital rape did not expressly constitute an offence (although it was possible to initiate action against it under assault laws). However, the term ‘extra-marital’ has now simply been deleted from the definition so as to include marital rape in the definition of rape and make it an offence in itself.

        The spectrum of domestic violence (which, incidentally, has a high level of recidivism) may include psychological, physical, sexual, financial and emotional abuse which may manifest itself as physical injury, the deprivation of food, money or other resources, intimidation, humiliation and degradation, and may result in anhedonia, pain, exhaustion, isolation, alienation, depression, fear, and decreased levels of self-esteem, productivity and attentiveness. The law forbids any kind of violence (including seemingly innocuous forms of abuse such as nagging which is, just like any other form of abuse, one of the grounds of divorce in the case of violence which occurs within a marriage).

        1.3 The procedure to deal with domestic violence

        Domestic violence proceedings can be made speedy, and various injunctions which (depending on the country) may include Non-Molestation Orders and Occupation Orders can be obtained by victims. The Power of Arrest may be attached to an injunction if it is shown that the perpetrator has used violence or has threatened to do so and may do so again.

        The legal nature of a Complaint may make those who are aware of an offence liable to be sanctioned if they do not report it to the authorities. Due to this, in practice, doctors who provide medical assistance to victims of domestic violence have a legal obligation to notify not the police but the public prosecutor’s office directly (except in the UK where the police undertakes the investigation). The public prosecutor then conducts a suo moto investigation into the incident(s). The British Government, for example, explicitly says, “The NHS has a particular contribution to make in domestic violence, not only because of the impact on victims’ health, but also because the NHS may be the first contact point with professionals who can recognise and intervene in the situation.” Domestic violence may be concealed by victims but not by the authorities. The consent of victims is no longer essential to initiate action against perpetrators, and various advertising campaigns have been conducted to make people aware that ‘the police will seek out men who abuse their partners and arrest them, even if the victim refuses to make a statement or give evidence’.3 The penalties are higher if the victim has special needs such as those of being pregnant, handicapped or disabled.

        1.4 Judicial reconciliation

        Taking into consideration high stress-levels, judicial reconciliation has been made available to deal with domestic violence: the perpetrator receives psychological therapy at a public hospital (for as long as councillors think is necessary) and promises not to repeat his behaviour. Penal sanctions are suspended for a period that may vary between three and four years (depending on the country). The councillors report the perpetrator’s progress to the judge and if it is unsatisfactory, the judicial reconciliation will end and penal sanctions will resume as they have a retrospective effect. These provisions, however, do not apply to guardians, foster parents, and minders.

        2 Measures in Support of Victims

        2.1 Shelters for victims

        Shelters, which provide a witness status to their guests, are set up by the State as well as other NGOs such as the Church and women’s rights NGOs to protect of victims of domestic violence. There is also an option to provide them with immediate interim shelter (for 48 hours) even before a medical examination by the coroner.

        The first modern women’s shelter (which was established in Chiswick, England in 1971 by Erin Pizzey) developed out of an ‘advice centre’ for women and their children. Since then, the movement for shelters has grown and in 1986, the European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities recommended that one shelter should be available for every 10000 people.

        2.2 Domestic violence campaigns

        The Commission has been conducting programmes and funding projects to raise awareness about violence and trafficking, to prevent them and to support victims. These include Daphne (2000-2003) and Daphne II (2004-08). The financial framework for the Daphne Programme was €20 million for the first phase and €50 million for the second phase. The programmes have tried to contribute towards ensuring a high level of physical and mental protection for children, young persons and women against violence (including sexual exploitation) by preventing violence and by providing support to victims especially in order to prevent their re-exposure to violence. They have also tried to promote closer co-operation between Member States and harmonise responses to these crimes although the principle of subsidiarity requires Member States to take measures to fight violence individually.4,5

        A campaign on the CoE website also speaks of stopping domestic violence against women. Its slogan:

        References:

        1. Reproductive health and human rights: integrating medicine, ethics and law
        (Cook, Dickens, Fathalla, Oxford, 2003, p 390)

        2. Gender mainstreaming into practice

        3. Metropolitan Police Service – Domestic Violence advertising campaign

        4. Gender Mainstreaming and Gender based violence and trafficking in women

        5. The Daphne Programme

        This post is an extract from an essay was written for the POROS Project.

        Children and Domestic Violence

        Posted on by
        Reply

        1 Children who witness domestic violence

        The effects of domestic violence are not confined to its victims. Apart from the fact that children may try to intervene to protect adult victims (thus putting themselves in danger), children who witness domestic violence are more likely than others to develop psychological and social problems including stress-related disorders such as PTSD. They may be fearful and angry, and exhibit (both as children and as adults) internalized and externalized behavioral problems including withdrawal, hostility and substance dependency. Their relationships may also reflect violence learned or seen at home.

        2 Violence against children

        The reported instances of violence against children in the form of acts and omissions which endanger their physical or emotional health, well-being and development have increased over the last few decades. The primary forms of violence and abuse against children are neglect, exploitation and physical, sexual or emotional abuse, and they can have devastating consequences for victims both immediately and in the long-term.

        Violence against children is completely illegal and schools, doctors and social workers have a duty to report suspicions of child abuse to the relevant legal authorities.

        There appears to be no single, definitive cause of abusive behaviour against children. At one end of the scale, the number of officially recorded child murders has steadily risen over the years and 60% of those charged with these murders are the parents of the murdered children. According to John Keane, in many of these cases, it is clear that both the victims and the perpetrators are trapped in high tension zones ‘where the conflict-ridden logics of the household (intimacy, sexual desire, identity formation, personal habits, marriage, money, housework and childcare) interact with, reinforce and often contradict virtually the same list of conflict-ridden logics of the labour market (with its additional special stresses and strains of employment, unemployment and underemployment) and its neighbouring criss-crossing social relations with the wider civil society’.

        3 What Europeans think of domestic violence

        The Teen Abuse Survey of Great Britain 2005 conducted by the NSPCC revealed that a third of teenage girls experienced or witnessed domestic violence at home but more than half of them did not consider this — hitting, screaming and shouting — to be domestic violence. 43% of teenagers thought that it was acceptable for a boyfriend to become aggressive and over 40% of all girls said that they would consider giving a boy a second chance if he hit them.

        The general awareness about domestic violence in Europe appears to be high though; only 4% of Europeans said that they had never heard of domestic violence against women in the 1999 Eurobarometer Survey conducted by the Commission. The survey also divulged that 62% of Europeans considered domestic violence against women to be ‘unacceptable in all circumstances and always punishable by law’, 32% considered it ‘unacceptable in all circumstances but not always punishable by law’, 2% said that it was ‘acceptable in certain circumstances’ and, thankfully, only 0.7% believed that it was ‘acceptable in all circumstances’.

        This post is an extract from an essay was written for the POROS Project.

        The Impact of War on Children

        Posted on by
        Reply

        The Pentagon boasts that the sun never sets on its military but conventional War has its consequences: child soldiers, refugees and internally displaced children, the child victims gender-based violence that war breeds, the threat of landmines, the disruption of food supplies, healthcare and education, as well as the spread of malnutrition…

        “The Pentagon boasts that the sun never sets on its military. That is a deplorable truth. The forces of the world’s mightiest superpower stretch from pole to pole, from east to west and west to east,” as Bob Aldridge, the author of ‘First Strike – The Pentagon’s Strategy for Nuclear War’ and ‘Nuclear Empire’, commented in the introduction to the latter book. Most of us have been hearing about little in the news recently apart from reports about the War in Iraq. Our E-mail Inboxes often contain at least half a dozen mails from various organisations telling us about various peace initiatives like the recent peace march in London, or else reminding us that, “The US administers a nuclear empire which is global in scope. The protection of that empire rests in the US military…”

        To a number of people here in India who receive E-mails from friends in the West asking whether George W Bush’s plans affect everyday living, the whole issue seems slightly ridiculous. Post September 11 sympathy for the US of A is dying down fast and it seems to be becoming apparent that extreme actions are not the sole domain of Islamic fundamentalists.

        And amongst the most vulnerable in a wartime situation are children. In recent years, the imposition of economic sanctions has been increasingly seen as a viable and less damaging alternative to conventional warfare but at the end of the day, it isn’t military and political leaders who suffer due to the sanctions but the most unprotected sections of society, usually the poor and the young. For example, studies from Cuba, Haiti and Iraq following the imposition of sanctions each showed a rapid rise in the proportion of children who were malnourished. “In Haiti after 1991, for example, one study indicated that the price of staple foods increased fivefold and the proportion of malnourished children increased from 5 to 23 per cent,” says Richard Garfield in “The Impact of Economic Sanctions on the Health of Women and Children”, New York, Columbia University.

        But conventional War has its consequences that many would say are even more excruciating: child soldiers, refugees and internally displaced children, the child victims gender-based violence that war breeds, in addition to the threat of landmines, the disruption of food supplies, healthcare and education, as well as the spread of malnutrition, not to mention the sheer psychosocial impact of violence on children. And as such, the question we’re left with is what on Earth does anyone hope to achieve by waging or supporting a war of any kind without fully exploring all the other non-violent alternatives such as weapons inspections, especially since even non-violent alternatives such as the imposition of economic sanctions are in no way Childs play?

        The UN says, “Children may become so familiar with mines that they forget they are lethal weapons. In northern Iraq, children have been known to use mines as wheels for toy trucks, and in Cambodia children have been seen playing “boules” with B40 anti-personnel mines, even beginning their own collections of landmines.” It isn’t the environment any of us would ever want our children to grow up in. Certain administrations might have us think differently, but we don’t have the right to inflict such an environment on anyone else’s children either. Maybe we should be looking more closely at Zero Conflict – A Technology of World Peace instead.
        Note: All the information is not authoritative. This write up has not been cross-checked with sources except those mentioned below, and anyone who wishes to use it should cross check it, treating the notes here as an invitation for further research.

        Sources:

        1. lnternationalism And Peace Movements

        2. United Nations Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development (DPCSD); United Nations Distr. GENERAL A/51/306; 26 August 1996; Original: English; Fifty-first session; Item 108 of the provisional agenda* A/51/150; Promotion And Protection Of The Rights Of Children, Impact of armed conflict on children

        3. Garfield, Richard, The Impact of Economic Sanctions on the Health of Women and Children, New York, Columbia University, April 1996, p. 9

        4. Zero Conflict – A Technology of World Peace

        5. San Jose Peace Centre