BREAKING THE SILENCE: WHY LEGAL AWARENESS IS WOMEN'S FIRST LINE OF DEFENCE

In a nation that worships the goddess but too often forgets the woman, the chasm between law in the books and justice on the ground is still frighteningly vast.

- RITIKA GOSWAMI

In a nation that worships the goddess but too often forgets the woman, the chasm between law in the books and justice on the ground is still frighteningly vast. Month after month, headlines scream of some new assault, dowry death, or sexual harassment at work. But beneath each such case there is a quieter, more insidious problem: a lack of legal rights awareness among women.

Even after decades of legal reform, from the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005, which established equal inheritance rights to the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, there are millions of women who are not aware of their legal rights. In rural India, where patriarchal institutions continue to dominate the social order, many women do not even know that domestic violence, marital rape, or sexual harassment in the workplace are criminalised, let alone to whom or where to report them. Legal empowerment starts not in courts but in talking, in community centers, and in classrooms.

THE LAW EXISTS, BUT KNOWLEDGE DOES NOT India's legislation for women's rights on paper is one of the most extensive in the developing world. There is the National Commission for Women, Nirbhaya Fund, and a variety of constitutional safeguards under Articles 14, 15, and 21 assuring equality and dignity. But the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) brings to light a sobering picture fewer than one-third know that laws safeguarding her from domestic violence exist.