Pardafas Reporter
Despite heavy efforts from all sectors to save women from being victim of various crimes, a recent data of Nepal Police shows that at least 14 women above 18 and three young girls are being raped in each two days in the country in the past five month from mid-July to mid-December.
In a gloomier picture, the same data shows that at least 61 crimes against women have been conducted each day during the same period.
A data recently released by Nepal Police has shown that 9,240 cases of various crimes against women were recorded at police in the last five months. Among them, highest numbers of 7,329 domestic violence cases were registered at the police. Similarly, heinous crime of rape comes second, where a total number of 993 adults and 104 minors were raped in these five months. Similarly, a total of 331 rape attempt complaints were filed at the police during this period.
As many as 351 cases of polygamy were registered 19 cases of child-marriage, 76 cases of women trafficking; 12cases of un-natural sex and 25 cases of witchcraft violence were registered to the police.
No one can deny that crimes against women are at a very high rate.
However, in a more despair situation, Nepal Police record shows that these crimes are in declining rate. Similar Nepal Police data of the last year of same time shows that similar crimes last year were even higher. A total number of 1,096 rapes were committed from mid-July to mid-December in 2020. This means that rape has decreased by almost 10 per cent in the last five months in comparison to same period of the previous year
Similarly declines can be seen in other crimes against women like, witchcraft violence was decreased by 32 per cent this time, and child rape and molestation was decreased by nearly 33 per cent. Crime of accusing someone of witchcraft have been decreased by nearly seven per cent and poly gamy decreased by nine per cent.
It seems more unusual that these crimes were recorded much during the lockdown in the last year. Police often said that crime rates in lockdown had decreased but the comparative with this year data did not align the police claim.
Moreover, crimes against women which are registered to the police are said to just be just a tip of an iceberg, as majority of such cases go unrecorded at police. Often the victims or the family of the victims don’t come forward about such crimes. Mostly, the domestic violence in the country go unnoticed as women often chose to keep silence about they being abused inside their homes by their loved ones. Studies also shows that majority of rape are done by the person in close family or friend circle.
Senior Superintendent of Police Basanta Bahadur Kunwar, spokesperson of Nepal Police said that it was their success that crime against women are gradually decreasing.
However security expert does not totally agree on his argument. Hemanta Malla Thakuri, a Nepali security expert and a retired DIG of Nepal Police said that all kinds of crimes inside the country are gradually increasing including crime against women due to the population growth and other reasons. Moreover, the crimes that are being reported to the police about women issues are highly lesser than it actual crime rate.
Thakuri informed that fear of being stigmatized in the society and in the family is the major reason the victims don’t want to come forward about the injustice they suffered. “Similarly, our police system and judiciary system is not women friendly and encouraged more women to come to the police station or seek police support in their issues. Most women upon being victim gets more scared to go to the police than to hide the issues,” Thakuri told Pardafas.
Another burning issue of online harassment and character assassination which are commonly done through social media is also one of the major crimes done against women. But, police says that they record only two to three cases per day while no body for sure knows how many such cases are recorded each day.
