INDIA
Free Express Journal
Apr 23, 2018
New Delhi: Not just child right activists, even parents of minor victims today came out against the Union government’s ordinance providing the death penalty to child rapists, saying it could lead to victims being killed by perpetrators. At a programme in New Delhi, three parents, whose children were raped, urged the central government to instead strengthen the judicial mechanism to support the children, who have to deal with the crimes and struggle in their aftermath.
“My child was 3.5 years old when she was raped in her playschool days after the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape case. She was still breast-feeding,” a father, whose testimonial moved those present at the programme to tears, said. “We sat in the police station with her from 9am to 9:30pm to register an FIR and she was asked where she was touched and how much pain she experienced. She was made to repeat her statement again and again for months. I want to ask everyone if I was wrong to ask for justice for my daughter,” he said.
The Union Cabinet, two days ago, cleared the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance 2018, which proposes stringent punishments, ranging from a minimum of 20 years to life term or death, for raping girls below the age of 12. President Ram Nath Kovind has approved the ordinance. The ordinance was brought after a nationwide outrage over cases of sexual assault and killing of minors in Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir, in Gujarat’s Surat, and the rape of a girl in Unnao in Uttar Pradesh.
Child rights groups reiterated that the real deterrent in such cases is the implementation of the laws and the certainty of punishment, rather than the death penalty. They said the ordinance was “reactionary, impractical in terms of procedural changes brought in and disproportionate with regards to sentencing.”
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