A considerable majority of Bhopal citizens, comprising almost all sections of society, are in favour of capital punishment and castration for rape convicts.
Expectedly more women are in favour of these severe forms of punishment then men, but interestingly, IAS officers - considered crème of society do not support these punishments ( 68% oppose capital punishment while 70% oppose castration).
More interestingly, almost one third of women feel the way women dress up might be responsible for rapes and the number of males who feel so is 46%.
These facts were revealed in a survey conducted in the city during last week of December (and analysed thereafter) by Bitiya - NGO of single-daughter families, which works towards changing society’s preference for male child.
The survey also shows that almost 85% citizens support self-defense training, setting up of fast track courts, sensitisation of sons to gender issue and agree that poor investigation, medical report and hostile witnesses are cause of low conviction. Almost 88% support a unique suggestion that a `gallery of shame’ should be set up in all cities to display pictures of rape convicts.
The decision to conduct the survey was taken in view of the national outrage and debate on various issues following the Delhi gang rape and murder incident, secretary of Bitiya, Shilpi Agnani told HT. The details of the survey (views of citizens) have been forwarded through an e-mail to the Justice Verma Commission, she said.
{{/usCountry}}The decision to conduct the survey was taken in view of the national outrage and debate on various issues following the Delhi gang rape and murder incident, secretary of Bitiya, Shilpi Agnani told HT. The details of the survey (views of citizens) have been forwarded through an e-mail to the Justice Verma Commission, she said.
{{/usCountry}}The survey was conducted among 2,535 citizens, divided into 55 sub-groups (in different age brackets) including Bitiya members, journalists, IAS officers, jurists, writers/ Artists, students, people’s representatives, social activists, sports persons, government officials, professionals working in banking, IT, and telecom sectors, charted accountants, educationists, doctors, lawyers. The representation of various women segments included school and college girls, girls living in hostels, women NGOs SABLA Group, women entrepreneurs, aanganwadi workers and supervisors, domestic workers, obstetrician and gynaecologists and others.
Of the total 2,535 respondents, 1,201 ( 47.37%) were female. Age wise respondents profile was; 361 (Male94, Female 267) were less than 19 years, 749 ( M- 363, F- 386) between 19-30 years, While several trends have been thrown up in the survey, some specific female responses are quite revealing.
Girls of less than 19 years of age strongly recommend capital punishment (88.01%), Castration (80.15%), compulsory self defense training of girls (87.64%) and setting up of gallery of shame (94.01%). Girls/Women in the 19-30 years age bracket recommend capital punishment (82.38%), compulsory self defense training of girls (84.46%) and only 23.06% agree that the way women dress is responsible for rape.