Essay on Factors Which Are Mainly Responsible For Steep Rise in Sex Offences in India !
Bio-scientists have opined that sex involvement though basically evil, is necessary for procreation, physical fitness and mental satisfaction of mankind. Like any other society, the Indian Society expects that sexual activities must be confined to marital relationship and sex indulgence outside marriage wedlock is an offence punishable under the penal law. Another notable feature regarding sexuality is that chastity is stressed more on women than men.
Commenting on sexual behaviour of mankind Donald Taft observes that sexuality being a biological phenomenon needs no specific training. The bio-physical changes with the growth of human body automatically prepare men and women for sex behaviour.
As regards the futility of external medical appliances for controlling procreation he observes that the knowledge of contraceptives is unnecessary because that would remove a deterrent on immoral behaviour and people would be free to indulge in sex delinquencies with impunity without the fear of possible conception or birth.
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It must, however, be noted that the present moral confusion and vanishing effect of religious sanctions has given rise to an unprecedented increase in sex delinquency. Sex-crimes have now-a-days become so common that people have lost all seriousness about them and they are looked upon as an ordinary mode of human behaviour.
The factors which are mainly responsible for steep rise in sex offences may briefly be stated as follows:—
(1) Man is a creature of endless moods and caprices. Just as he wants change and variety in food he eats and clothes he wears and the music he hears, so he finds it difficult to remain absolutely faithful to one sex-partner. Therefore, variety being the essence of enjoyment, men and women indulge in extra-marital relations which are not always approved by society or law.
Dr. Freud, in his theory of criminal behaviour has explained sexual criminality in terms of functional deviations and mental conflicts in the personality of individuals. According to him, id generates sex urge in a person yet the force of ego and super-ego within him makes him conscious that only the righteous means to fulfil this desire would project his personality and any deviation from the accepted norms would damage his reputation.
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As such, it is the force of self-consciousness (ego) and self-criticism (super-ego) which keeps most persons on the right path. However, those who lack ego and super-ego generally tend to indulge in extra-marital sex-relations.
(2) The institution of religion which was once regarded as a potential weapon of social control has lost its force in modem times. So is the case with moral and ethical values of life. Due to the impact of western culture, the age-old traditional norms and customs are fast losing their hold on Indian society.
The craze for comforts and luxurious life has undermined the glory of past traditional culture which has seriously jeopardised the compactness of Indian life. The legislative measures such as the Special Marriage Act, 1954; the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955; etc. have contributed to disrupt the unity of joint Hindu family.
Consequently, morality has lost its significance in modern sexy civilization. Slackness in domestic discipline offers frequent opportunities for judicial separation, divorce and marital disputes. This tendency is more conspicuous among the educated elites.
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It is significant to note that uneducated and illiterate masses still have an unshaken faith in the institution of family and integrity of martial life. This accounts for the growing incidence of sexual crimes in urban areas as compared with the rural regions.
(3) Industrial development in India has brought in its wake a radical change in the pattern of Indian society. The institution of family has disintegrated. The modern Indian woman no longer confines herself within the precincts of four walls of her house but participates in outdoor activities shoulder to shoulder with men.
As a result of this change in the attitude of women, the housewife is no longer content with a passive role in her domestic life. She does not meekly submit herself to the commands of her husband but prefers to remain only a companion to him asserting her independent existence in every walk of life.
As a result of this, the integrity of marital life is gradually vanishing. Closer association of women with men, particularly at work places, provides occasion for intimacy which creates a background for sex delinquency. Despite the protection extended to worker in work places by the Supreme Court through its guidelines laid down in Vishaka’s cases, the sexual harassment of women in jobs and elsewhere have not receded.
(4) Urbanisation due to industrial progress of the country has given rise to several new problems in human life. Parents have to stay away from their home for a considerable long time during working hours. This results into neglect of children and lack of parental control over them. The youngsters, therefore, tend to become more indisciplined, reckless, repulsive and irresponsible.
The tendency of hooliganism, rowdyism and attitude of indifference among the youngsters is essentially because of the impact of urbanisation and industrialisation which has necessitated men and women to stay away from their homes in pursuit of work and employment, thus leaving little time to be spared for proper care of their wards.
(5) Referring to sex deviants, Donald Taft rightly observed that changes in the habits of dress and undress, sex themes in literature, dramas, obscenity in advertisements, movies, television and cinemas may stimulate sexual impulse in varying degrees. So far India is concerned; the impact of western civilization on Indian life has been so great that people have developed a craze for imitating western ways in every walk of life.
In result, Indian people have become more sexy than their ancestors. The peculiar costumes and clothing’s of modem girls and women invite lustful looks of sexy persons. The cosmetics used by modem women and the fragrance of scent, essence, perfumes and other cosmetics also stimulate sex sensation.
To add to the misery, the impact of television and cinema is so great on the younger people that they learn new ways of flirting, romance and courtship from these films and try to practise them in their real life. Acquaintances between the male and female adolescents leads to intimacy which finally turns into courtship and in a fit of excitement and irresistible sex-desire, the spouses momentarily forget themselves and indulge into acts which they subsequently realise to be sex crimes.
Once having experienced the pleasure of sexual act, they are hardly able to resist their sex-urge and repeat it times again fully knowing about the illegality and gravity of the consequences. This finally turns them recidivists. Commenting on this aspect of sexuality. Edwin Sutherland observed that out of all the crimes, sex crime tops the list so far as recidivism is concerned.
The story does not end here. One single cohabitation is enough to involve both spouses into further criminality. Thus, if the illicit intercourse results into pregnancy, that woman in order to conceal her act and to get rid of the Conceived child, would resort to illegal abortion which itself is a crime.
However, due to inadvertence when the conceived child is allowed to take birth, it again creates complications as it results into unmarried motherhood. This further raises the problem of legitimacy of the child so born. It is, therefore, often said that the sex crime apart from being a single offence, is occasionally followed by a series of other correlated offences.
(6) The influence of intoxicants such as liquor, drugs etc., also accounts for the incidence of sex crimes. Consumption of wine and liquor has become a part of habit with most of the persons. Under the influence of intoxication, a man becomes wild and rash.
He becomes emotionally excited and forgetting all normal restraints, becomes aggressive and commits sex crime recklessly, though he may repent for it after he resumes normal sense. Even fathers are known to have raped their daughters or daughter-in-laws under the influence of intoxication.
(7) The satisfaction of sex impulse is an important biological need of human personality. It is in fact a psycho-biological—urge which needs to be pacified through legitimate means. It is for this reason that early marriages acted as a safety valve to put a check on sex crimes because they offered legitimate opportunities to spouses to satisfy their sex desire and refrain from forbidden sex indulgences.
Commenting on the desirability of marriage as an appropriate institution to suppress sex delinquency, Mrs. Ruth Shonle Cavan observed that marriage shapes the personal life of man and fulfils his physio-biological needs which, if otherwise left unfulfilled, would drag him into sex delinquency.
(8) Family unhappiness due to wife being frigid or husband being weak in sex act may also divert the spouses to prohibited sex conduct. Incompatibilities with regard to physique, temperament, habits etc. may disturb the marital life of life-partners which may lead either of them or both to promiscuity as and when they get opportunity. At times, physical, complexion, features of spouses may also be the cause of dissatisfaction leading to extra-marital sex indulgences.
(9) It is significant to note that intensity of sex desire among persons is never uniform. It varies from person to person depending on his cultural, group and social environment. There are certain persons who on account of their emotional instability and impulsiveness, are not able to foresee the dangers of their sex involvements and therefore, repeat them without bothering about the evil consequences.
Those living in broken homes, slums, crowded localities or vicious inhabitation are easily prone to sex delinquency and generally become sexual psychopaths. These persons are positive danger, particularly to women and children who are usually the victims of sex crime. Dr. Paripumanand has rightly pointed out that bad conditions of living actually serve as training ground for the children and adolescents to learn sexual behaviour.
The innocent children who indulge in sex acts without knowing that what they are doing is a crime and at a later stage when they grow older they turn to be sexual psychopaths, frequently resorting to sex crime on account of their irresistible passion.
(10) In context of sex crimes, a word must also be said about obscenity which provides a fertile ground for sex-stimulation. The definition of the word ‘obscene’ suggests that any book, pamphlet, writing, article, drawing, figure or painting or any such material shall be deemed to be obscene if it stimulates sex and is likely to pervert the minds of those who read it or see it.
The test whether a particular matter is obscene or not, depends on the interpretation of section 292 IPC and not on expert evidence. Thus, a passage contained in a serious work giving advice to married men on how to regulate sexual side of life was held not to be obscene although it contained detailed description of sex act.
In the historic Hicklin’s case, the Court observed that the test for deciding obscenity is whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscene is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences, and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall.
In Samresh Bose v. Amol Mitra, the Supreme Court drew a distinction between obscenity and vulgarity and held that a vulgar writing is not necessarily obscene. Vulgarity arouses a feeling of disgust and repulsion and also boredom but does not have effect of depraving, debasing and corrupting the morals of any reader which obscenity does. The test is objective. In the instant case, the publication was not held to be obscene though it could be called vulgar.
(11) One more reason for growing incidence of sex crime in India is that majority of sex offenders get acquitted in the absence of eye-witnesses as these offences are always committed in desolate lonely places. Besides fear, awe and humiliation also dissuades woman, who is a victim of sex crime from approaching the law court and even if they dare to do so, they feel awkward in replying to questions relating to the details of sex act. The medical experts also avoid giving a definite opinion about the sexual intercourse having been done by the accused in order to play safe. The victimised woman seldom raises hue and cry against the culprit.
In brief, “the trauma of the incident of sex crime, particularly the offence of rape, followed by the trauma of having to narrate the facts to the police followed by the trauma of undergoing medical examination of the most intimate organs of the body, are enough discouragements to a victim. Added to this, is the trauma of being subjected to rigid cross-examination in the court-room”. If the victim happens to be a child or a teenage girl, she may not be able to unfold the story fully and freely before the court, when confronted with the offender.