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What's Inside

The report entitled Justice Denied: Sexual Violence and Intersectional Discrimination - Barriers to Accessing Justice for Dalit Women and Girls in Haryana (released in November 2020), which has been produced by Swabhiman Society, a grassroots organisation led by Dalit women, and international women's rights organisation Equality Now, aims to understand and analyse the specific barriers to accessing justice faced by Dalit survivors of sexual violence in Haryana. This report draws from Swabhiman Society’s experience of working directly with Dalit survivors of sexual violence in Haryana over the past decade and highlights insights from this work. While all survivors of sexual violence in India face difficulties in accessing the criminal justice system, this report focuses on the particular issues faced by Dalit women and girl survivors and utilises an intersectional approach to document their experiences. By taking into account the various forms of social stratification faced by people at the intersections of various identities, including caste (which is an overarching system of oppression and discrimination), class, age and gender, we find that the nature and forms of discrimination and violence faced by women and girls at these interstices are severe and will require specific intentional interventions to address.

This report Justice Denied: Sexual Violence and Intersectional Discrimination - Barriers to Accessing Justice for Dalit Women and Girls in Haryana (please click here to access) finds that not only are Dalit women and girls in Haryana effectively denied access to justice in cases of sexual violence due to the prevalent culture of impunity, particularly when the perpetrators are from a dominant caste, but that there are indications Dalit women and girls are specifically targeted for rape by dominant caste men who can rely on such impunity. In almost all cases, survivors who seek justice for sexual violence are subjected to stigma, retaliation, threats, violence and extreme pressure to stay silent or stop pursuing the criminal process. They live in fear - of their own safety, of losing their access to livelihood (often controlled by dominant caste communities), of being forced out of their homes, and of facing caste-based abuse and discrimination from the police, prosecutors and other officials in the criminal justice system. This fear, trauma and pressure faced by survivors and their families is compounded by the obstacles to accessing justice within the criminal justice system itself. The cases included in this report are based on incidents of rape, which took place over a span of 12 years, i.e. 2009-2020.

The key data findings based on the 40 cases of rape against Dalit women and girls studied in Haryana are as follows:

Caste-based Sexual Violence: The vast majority of sexual violence cases against Dalit women and girls (over 80%) were committed by men from dominant castes.

Difficulty in obtaining convictions: The only cases in which convictions were obtained against all accused persons involved either rape and murder together, or were committed against very young girls (under the age of 6). It remains exceptionally difficult to obtain convictions in cases other than those deemed to be the most extreme violations such that adolescent girls and adult women struggle to obtain justice.

Community role in impeding access to justice: Community and social pressure plays a major role in impeding access to justice through pushing or forcing the survivor or her family into compromises or extra-legal settlements (as happened in 57.5% of the cases studied). Unofficial village councils, known as khap panchayats, also attempted to interfere with the justice process in over 80% of the cases, by using their economic, social and political power to threaten, intimidate and coerce the survivor or her family into staying silent or refrain from pursuing the criminal case.

Lack of support services: Survivors find it extremely difficult to access support services, including those which are required to be provided by law, such as victim compensation, psycho-social care and police protection, for various reasons including inaccessibility of services, castebased discrimination etc.

Intrusive medical examinations: The banned two-finger test, a traumatising and unscientific vaginal examination, continues to be conducted as part of the medico-legal examination of rape survivors in many cases.



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