Dr. Javed Jamil
THE HELL IN FULL FURY-2
Crimes against women
The level of violence in society depends on several factors but three of them are extremely crucial: Fear of God; Fear of Law; and Fear of Society. If these three disappear in the minds of individuals, the level of violence will surely increase. Out of the three, it is perhaps the fear of law that counts most. If the fear of God had been enough, religious laws would not have prescribed punishments for violence. But the fact that all legal systems including religious laws prescribe punishments clearly indicates the importance of the fear of law. The modern systems have sought to demolish the fear of God altogether, have caused a massive diminution in the fear of law and have made many crimes acceptable in society. The results are for all to see. Despite colossal legal machineries with huge money involved, the current model of Western judicial system has proved to be an abysmal failure in acting as a deterrent for crimes.
Let us now examine the case of violence against women. This is specifically important because the modern ideologies boast of substantially raising the status of women in society.
Rapes
The combined effect of the commercialisation of sex, the social culture it spawned and the legal framework that its proponents propelled was an overwhelming increase in all kinds of violence. Rapes, murders, abuses and the other forms of domestic violence have reached a level at which society loses its claim of being civilised. The conditions that prevail in a typical Western society, or any society that follows Western legal system or tries to imitate its social norms, are good enough for rapes to abound. The empowerment of women sans security has made them easy targets. They are no longer confined to the safe environs of family for most of the time. They usually get out of out of their houses early in the day and do not come back till the night has settled in. They are normally not accompanied by any that would guard them. Often, they are travelling or walking in lonely areas away from the public gaze. They happen to be in situations and places where their screams for help have little chances to be heard. Their appearance hardly helps them. While several factors contribute to the rise in the incidence of rapes, two are the chief culprits. The first and more important is the laxity of law, in word as well as in practice. The second is the provocative images in the media, including soft and hard porn, nude pictures and highly provocative write-ups. It can be argued that rape is more “violence manifested in sex rather than sex manifested in violence”. However, whichever the case, the truth is that the above two factors remain the ultimate culprits. It may be right that it is the desire to overpower a person rather than have sex is responsible for rapes. But these could never have culminated into sexual assaults, except in a small number of cases, if the atmosphere had not been so terrifically charged with sex and the law not been so terribly impotent, as they have become.
According to Justice Department, in the US, one in two rape victims are under 18, and one in six under 12. This means that more than two third of victims are those that have not attained the official age of adulthood. The same is true of most of the countries having modern legal and social systems. Cases are often reported in the media where the victims of rape are children less than 6. How rape is demolishing the whole myth of women’s “freedom” and “empowerment” can be gauged from the statistics that look horrible in the very first sight. Every eleventh woman in the US and every fourth in South Africa have been raped, and attempt to rape has been made on every fourth woman in the US and every second in South Africa. Conditions in most of the European countries are no better. What is disturbing is that only 6% cases are punished. This demonstrates the lack of confidence in law-enforcing agencies as well as the inability of women to report on account of the fact that a substantial majority of the assailants are their relatives.
Let us first study some of the major statistics about the incidence of rape. The following is the list of top nations in terms of total number of rapes committed in a year:
1. United States 89,110 (1999)
2. South Africa 53,008 (2000)
3. Canada 24,049 (2000)
4. Australia 15,630 (2000)
5. India 15,468 (1999)
6. Mexico 13,061 (2000)
7. United Kingdom 8,593 (2000)
8. France 8,458 (2000)
9. Germany 7,499 (2000)
10. Russia 6,978 (2000)
11. Korea, South 6,139 (2000)
12. Spain 5,664 (2000)
13. Zimbabwe 5,567 (2000)
14. Thailand 4,020 (2000)
15. Venezuela 2,931 (2000)
16. Poland 2,399 (2000)
17. Italy 2,336 (2000)
18. Japan 2,260 (2000)
19. Colombia 1861 (2000)
20. Netherlands 1648 (2000)
21. Indonesia 1372 (2000)
22. Jamaica 1304 (2000)
23. Papua New Guinea 1295 (2000)
24. Turkey 1260 (2000)
25. Chile 1250 (2000)
26. Malaysia 1210 (2000)
27. Sri Lanka 1202 (2000)
28. Ukraine 1151 (2000)
29. Romania 1110 (2000)
30. New Zealand 861 (2000)
31. Bulgaria 593 (2000)
32. Hungary 589 (2000)
33. Finland 579 (2000)
34. Norway 555 (2000)
35. Belarus 530 (2000)
36. Czech Republic 500 (2000)
37. Denmark 497 (2000)
38. Costa Rica 475 (1999)
39. Switzerland 404 (2000)
40. Portugal 385 (2000)
41. Tunisia 334 (2000)
42. Kyrgyzstan 321 (2000)
43. Zambia 300 (2000)
44. Ireland 218 (1999)
45. Moldova 200 (2000)
46. Lithuania 183 (2000)
47. Uruguay 175 (2000)
48. Slovakia 129 (2000)
49. Greece 114 (2000)
50. Latvia 104 (2000)
Total 295,879
Source: Seventh United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, covering the period 1998 - 2000 (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention)
Latest available data in terms of rapes per 1000 people
Rank Countries Amount
1. South Africa: 1.19538 per 1,000 people
2. Seychelles:
3. Australia:
4. Montserrat:
5. Canada:
6. Jamaica:
7. Zimbabwe:
8. Dominica:
9. United States: 0.301318 per 1,000 people
10. Iceland:
11. Papua New Guinea 0.233544 per 1,000 people
12. New Zealand: 0.213383 per 1,000 people
13. United Kingdom: 0.142172 per 1,000 people
14. Spain:
15. France:
16. Korea, South: 0.12621 per 1,000 people
17. Mexico:
18. Norway:
19. Costa Rica:
20. Venezuela:
21. Finland:
22. Netherlands: 0.100445 per 1,000 people
23. Denmark:
24. Germany:
25. Bulgaria:
26. Chile:
27. Thailand:
28. Kyrgyzstan:
29. Poland:
30. Sri Lanka:
31. Hungary:
32. Estonia:
33. Ireland:
34. Switzerland:
35. Belarus:
36. Uruguay:
37. Lithuania:
38. Malaysia:
39. Romania:
40. Czech Republic: 0.0488234 per 1,000 people
41. Russia:
42. Latvia:
43. Moldova: .
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