Crime against Women: A Historical Perspective

In the ancient Indian women held a high place of respect in the society as mentioned in Rig-Veda and other scriptures. Volumes can be written about the status of our women and their heroic deeds from the Vedic period to the modern times. But later on, because of social, political and economic changes, women lost their status and were relegated to the background. Many evil customs and traditions stepped in which enslaved the women and tied them to the boundaries of the house. The official statistics showed a declining sex-ratio, health status, literacy rate, work participation rate and political participation among women. While on the other hand the spread of social evils like dowry deaths, child marriage, domestic violence, rape, sexual harassment, exploitation of women workers are in different parts of India. Humiliation, rape, kidnapping, molestation, dowry death, torture, wife-beating etc. have grown up over the years. Criminal behaviour is the product of a systematic process that involves complex interactions between individual, societal, and ecological factors over the course of our lives. Crime against women includes threats, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse, controlling or domineering. kidnapping, murder (all cases of criminal violence, dowry death, wife battering, sexual abuse, maltreatment of a widow and for an elderly women (all cases of domestic violence) and eve-teasing, forcing wife/daughter-in-law to go for foeticide, forcing a young widow to commit sati, etc (all cases of social violence), are issues which affect a large section of society. In my paper I have been discussed the law, policies related to protection of women against crimes. Protection of women against crime international and national perspective view, Verna committee report is discussed in the detailed. In the end of my paper I have conclude the paper and give the valuable suggestions on the topic crime against women.