Authors retain the copyright without restrictions for their published content in this journal. HSSR is a SHERPA ROMEO Green Journal.
Publishing License
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of
THE DYNAMICS OF COUNSELLING AS A VICTIM MANAGEMENT STRATEGY IN CASES OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN INDIA
Corresponding Author(s) : Tulishree Pradhan
Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews,
Vol. 7 No. 6 (2019): November
Abstract
Purpose of the study: The purpose of the study is to bring forward the ground realities regarding the practice of counselling which was considered to be a sine qua non under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005. The study reveals the actuality of how counselling remains an alien concept to the victims of marital abuse indicating that counselling is rarely done by the Protection Officers and as a consequence, the victims remain both ignorant as well as fail to reap the benefit of this method of resolution.
Methodology: A plausible combination of doctrinal and empirical research is adopted. Doctrinal and empirical research involves in-depth study and analysis of available information in an attempt to explain the complex phenomenon. Through comparative analysis, proper reasoning has been tried to be brought to decode the practice of counselling in various states of India. The empirical research involves data collection from four different stakeholders such as; Judiciary, victims and Public. Modus operandi: Observation, questionnaire, interviews.
Result: Through this paper, the authors have brought out the reality behind the policymaking and the implementation aspect of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, in the State of West Bengal. The research was conducted throughout six districts of West Bengal, especially focusing on the method of ‘counselling.’ The result that came out of the study revealed the lack of awareness of the victims about the practice of counselling’ and also that ‘counselling’ being the least favored relief granted by judicial officers. While on the other hand, the data on protection officers revealed their belief in the practice of ‘counselling’ which according to them helps in curbing the menace of domestic abuse.
Implications: The study brings to light the gap between the provisions of the law under the PWDVA, 2005, and its practice in actual cases, particularly in West Bengal and requires a re-visit by the policymakers to reconsider the grand ideas set out in the Act and their practical implementations in our society.
Novelty: The study was conducted in six districts of West Bengal, and is a first of its kind. The questionnaires have been prepared by the authors themselves and the answers have been obtained by personal visits to all the stakeholders mentioned in the article. A research of this kind has not been conducted previously in the State of West Bengal, making the data collection and analysis original. Apart from the field research, the researchers have referred to various primary and secondary documents to understand the background of the phenomenon of domestic abuse, for which reference has been given.
Keywords
Download Citation
Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS)BibTeX
- Adkins M. (2010). Moving Out of the 1990s: An Argument for Updating Protocol on Divorce Mediation in Domestic Abuse Cases. YALE JOURNAL OF LAW AND FEMINISM, 22(1) 97; Lene Madsen L. (2012), A Fine Balance: Domestic Violence, Screening, and Family Mediation, Canadian Family Law Quarterly, 30(3), 345-365
- Agnes F. (1992). Protecting Women against Violence? Review of a Decade of Legislation,1980-89. Economic and Political Weekly, 27 (1) 19-33
- Agnew V. (1997). The West in Feminist Debate: Discourse and Practice. Women’s Studies International Journal, 20(1), 3-19. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-5395(96)00090-8 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-5395(96)00090-8
- Anderson, R. W., Bushman, B. J., and Groom, R. W. (1997). Hot years and serious and deadly assault: empirical tests of the heat hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(6), 1213 1223. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.73.6.1213 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.73.6.1213
- Basu S. (2015). The Trouble with Marriage: Feminists Confront Law and Violence in India. University of California Press, (pp.51-131).
- Basu S. (2015). The Trouble with Marriage: Feminists Confront Law And Violence In India. University of California Press; also see Grillo T. (1991), The Mediation Alternative: Process Dangers for Worsen, 100(6)THE YALE LAW JOURNAL, (100) 6, 1545. https://doi.org/10.2307/796781
- Buzawa. E. S., & Buzawa. C. G. (1990). Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/kiit1/Desktop/DV/1-s2.0-S1359178906000474-main.pdf
- Census of India (2011). Provisional Population Totals 2011.http://censusindia.gov.in/2011census/cens usinfodashboard/downloads.html
- Chapman, J. R. (1990). Violence against Women as a Violence of Human Rights. Social Justice, Vol. 17, No. 2 (40), Criminality, Imprisonment & Women’s Rights in the 1990s, 54-70, 56
- Chapman, J.R., and Gates, M. (Eds.)( 1978). The Victimization of Women. Beverly Hills. Sage Publications.
- Collins P. H. (2000). Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment. Routledge, (pp. 2-32)..
- Dave, A., & Solanki, G. (2000). Domestic violence in India: A summary report of four research studies. Washington DC: International Centre for Research on Women.
- D'Mello A., Agnes F. (2015), Protection of Women from Domestic Violence. Economic and Political Weekly, 50(44), 76-84
- Ferraro, K. J., & Johnson, J. M. (1983). How women experience battering: The process of victimization. Social Problems, 30(3), 325–339. https://doi.org/10.1525/sp.1983.30.3.03a00080. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/sp.1983.30.3.03a00080
- Gangesh Dnyanoba Dagade Vs. State of Maharashtra, LAWS(BOM)-2015-9-153.
- Gangoli, G., Rew, M. (2015). Strategic Co-option Indian Feminists, the State and Legal Activism on Domestic Violence. In Understanding Gender Based Violence: National And International Context, ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN CRIME AND SOCIETY; Solanki, G. (2013) Beyond the Limitations of an Impasse: Feminism, Multiculturalism, and Legal Reforms in Religious Family Laws, Politikon: South African Journal Of Political Studies, 40(1), 83-111. https://doi.org/10.1080/02589346.2013.765678
- Gangoli, G., Rew, M. (2015). Strategic Co-option Indian Feminists, the State and Legal Activism on Domestic Violence. In Understanding Gender Based Violence: National and International Context, (pp.83-111), ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN CRIME AND SOCIETY
- Guha P., et al, (1974, December). Towards Equality, Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India, Government of India, New Delhi; Rai S., Shraddha C. (2007), Emerging State Feminism in India: A Conversation with VinMazumdar, Member Secretary to the First Committee on the Status of Women in India, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 9(1), 104-111. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616740601066465 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14616740601066465
- Jaising, I. (2007). Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/43953447?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
- Jaising, I. (2009). Bringing rights home: a review of the campaign for a law on domestic violence. Economic and Political Weekly.https://www.epw.in/journal/2009/44/review-womens-studies-review-issues-specials/br inging-rights-home-review-campaign?0=ip_login_no_cache%3D5ba710 1abeddf66a641bd7041 aeacff9.
- Lawyers Collective, Staying Alive: Evaluating Court Orders, Sixth Monitoring & Evaluation Report 2013,https://www.lawyerscollective.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Staying-Alive Evaluating-Court-Orders.pdf
- Mill J. S. (1869), The Subjection of Women. Transaction Publishers, (pp.3). https://doi.org/10.1037/12288-000 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/12288-000
- Mill, J. S. (1989). On liberty and other writings. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press.
- Mitra-Kahn T. (2013). Offline Issues, Online Lives? The Emerging Cyberlife of Feminist Politics in Urban India. In (S. Roy, Ed.,) South Asian Feminisms; Paradoxes and Possibilities (pp. 108-126). London, Zed Books DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350221505.ch-005
- Molyneux M. (1985). Mobilization without Emancipation? Women’s interests, the State, and Revolution in Nicaragua. Feminist Studies, 11(2), 227-254. https://doi.org/10.2307/3177922 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3177922
- Neely C. L. (2008, April). Body Evidence: Intimate Violence against South Asian Women in America [Review of the book Indian Feminisms: Law, Patriarchy and Violence in India by GeetanjaliGangoli]. Violence against Women, Vol. 14(4), 496-501. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801208315107 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801208315107
- Oshana M. (2006). Personal Autonomy in Society. Ashgate, (pp.1-17).
- Post-Separation Abuse in Domestic Violence Cases: Out of the Frying Pan of Domestic Abuse and into the Fires of DV Homicide, Infanticide, and Child Sexual Abuse. SPIRITUAL ALLIANCE TO STOPINTIMATE VIOLENCE (2014) available at http://saiv.org/post separation-abuse-in domestic-violence-cases.
- Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005.
- Ray R. (1999), Calcutta: A Hegemonic Political Field, In Fields of Protest: Women’s Movements in India. University of Minnesota Press, (pp. 41-62).
- Ruri I. (2003). Engendering the Concept of Peace: on Violence Against Women. The Asia Pacific Journal, Vol.1(4), pp.1-3, file:///C:/Users/hp/Desktop/S.498A/New%20folder/article_2309.pdf
- Sangari K. (1995). Politics of Diversity: Religious Communities and Multiple Patriarchies. Economic and Political Weekly, 30 (51), 3787-3810.
- Solanki G. &Gangoli G. (2016). Defining Domestic Violence and Women’s Autonomy in Law. Socio-legal Review, Vol. 12 (1), 68-76.
- Solanki G. (2011). Adjudication in Religious Family Laws: Cultural Accommodation, Legal Pluralism and Gender Equality in India. Cambridge University Press, (pp. 31-89). https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511835209 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511835209
- Solanki G. (2013). Beyond the Limitations of an Impasse: Feminism, Multiculturalism, and Legal Reforms in Religious Family Laws, Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies, 40(1), 83-111. https://doi.org/10.1080/02589346.2013.765678 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02589346.2013.765678
- Solanki G. (2017). A Court of her own: Autonomy, Gender, and Women’s Courts in India. In BanoSamia (Ed.,) Gender and Justice in Family Law Disputes: Women, Mediation and Religious Arbitration (pp. 215-245).Waltham: Brandeis University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv102bhb9.13
- Solanki G., Geetanjali G. (2016). Defining Domestic Violence and Women’s Autonomy in Law. Socio-Legal Rev. 12, 51.
- Stark, E. (2007). Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women In Personal Life. Oxford University Press, (pp.205).
- Thiara R. and Gill A. (2012). Domestic Violence, Child Contact and Post-Separation Violence Issues for South Asian and African-Caribbean Women and Children: a Report of Findings (The University of Warwick, NSPCC, and the University of Roehampton), available athttps://library.nspcc.org.uk/HeritageScripts/Hapi.d ll/filetransfer/2012DomesticViolenceChildContactPostSeparationViolenceReport.pdf?filename=AA58F75 CEDE68892A73FB681FE246B8371684F102172D08A780A14959D3BCE5747137B3B2A935011CB 8EC3068664FF481AA6D2524E357BAB96C006752CCD756759AD77BD1E389823A55CFAAE74B2EE64F46C611AD1724BE1AC500B025490CCB1CD8D9D26B00674E723A731951BB13FBE2976B014838E6BBB09AEF852A6647F27D53F9AD07F9EC2F1BBAB21210E2AFA8C9F4D24E678FF57F3C9FD08F8CB487807F650A66F6219432A8AE7955790B0AC10517B216FE86F89CF7F033C0460B435E1F6CD02978C0057862839F95F28E2&DataSetName=LIVEDATA(last visited 20 April 2019)
- Vibhuti, S. P. (1983). The Anti Rape Movement in India. In M. Davis (Eds.) Third World, Second Sex: Women’s Struggles and National Liberation (180-190). London: Zed Press.
References
Adkins M. (2010). Moving Out of the 1990s: An Argument for Updating Protocol on Divorce Mediation in Domestic Abuse Cases. YALE JOURNAL OF LAW AND FEMINISM, 22(1) 97; Lene Madsen L. (2012), A Fine Balance: Domestic Violence, Screening, and Family Mediation, Canadian Family Law Quarterly, 30(3), 345-365
Agnes F. (1992). Protecting Women against Violence? Review of a Decade of Legislation,1980-89. Economic and Political Weekly, 27 (1) 19-33
Agnew V. (1997). The West in Feminist Debate: Discourse and Practice. Women’s Studies International Journal, 20(1), 3-19. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-5395(96)00090-8 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-5395(96)00090-8
Anderson, R. W., Bushman, B. J., and Groom, R. W. (1997). Hot years and serious and deadly assault: empirical tests of the heat hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(6), 1213 1223. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.73.6.1213 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.73.6.1213
Basu S. (2015). The Trouble with Marriage: Feminists Confront Law and Violence in India. University of California Press, (pp.51-131).
Basu S. (2015). The Trouble with Marriage: Feminists Confront Law And Violence In India. University of California Press; also see Grillo T. (1991), The Mediation Alternative: Process Dangers for Worsen, 100(6)THE YALE LAW JOURNAL, (100) 6, 1545. https://doi.org/10.2307/796781
Buzawa. E. S., & Buzawa. C. G. (1990). Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/kiit1/Desktop/DV/1-s2.0-S1359178906000474-main.pdf
Census of India (2011). Provisional Population Totals 2011.http://censusindia.gov.in/2011census/cens usinfodashboard/downloads.html
Chapman, J. R. (1990). Violence against Women as a Violence of Human Rights. Social Justice, Vol. 17, No. 2 (40), Criminality, Imprisonment & Women’s Rights in the 1990s, 54-70, 56
Chapman, J.R., and Gates, M. (Eds.)( 1978). The Victimization of Women. Beverly Hills. Sage Publications.
Collins P. H. (2000). Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment. Routledge, (pp. 2-32)..
Dave, A., & Solanki, G. (2000). Domestic violence in India: A summary report of four research studies. Washington DC: International Centre for Research on Women.
D'Mello A., Agnes F. (2015), Protection of Women from Domestic Violence. Economic and Political Weekly, 50(44), 76-84
Ferraro, K. J., & Johnson, J. M. (1983). How women experience battering: The process of victimization. Social Problems, 30(3), 325–339. https://doi.org/10.1525/sp.1983.30.3.03a00080. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/sp.1983.30.3.03a00080
Gangesh Dnyanoba Dagade Vs. State of Maharashtra, LAWS(BOM)-2015-9-153.
Gangoli, G., Rew, M. (2015). Strategic Co-option Indian Feminists, the State and Legal Activism on Domestic Violence. In Understanding Gender Based Violence: National And International Context, ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN CRIME AND SOCIETY; Solanki, G. (2013) Beyond the Limitations of an Impasse: Feminism, Multiculturalism, and Legal Reforms in Religious Family Laws, Politikon: South African Journal Of Political Studies, 40(1), 83-111. https://doi.org/10.1080/02589346.2013.765678
Gangoli, G., Rew, M. (2015). Strategic Co-option Indian Feminists, the State and Legal Activism on Domestic Violence. In Understanding Gender Based Violence: National and International Context, (pp.83-111), ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN CRIME AND SOCIETY
Guha P., et al, (1974, December). Towards Equality, Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India, Government of India, New Delhi; Rai S., Shraddha C. (2007), Emerging State Feminism in India: A Conversation with VinMazumdar, Member Secretary to the First Committee on the Status of Women in India, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 9(1), 104-111. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616740601066465 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14616740601066465
Jaising, I. (2007). Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/43953447?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
Jaising, I. (2009). Bringing rights home: a review of the campaign for a law on domestic violence. Economic and Political Weekly.https://www.epw.in/journal/2009/44/review-womens-studies-review-issues-specials/br inging-rights-home-review-campaign?0=ip_login_no_cache%3D5ba710 1abeddf66a641bd7041 aeacff9.
Lawyers Collective, Staying Alive: Evaluating Court Orders, Sixth Monitoring & Evaluation Report 2013,https://www.lawyerscollective.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Staying-Alive Evaluating-Court-Orders.pdf
Mill J. S. (1869), The Subjection of Women. Transaction Publishers, (pp.3). https://doi.org/10.1037/12288-000 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/12288-000
Mill, J. S. (1989). On liberty and other writings. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press.
Mitra-Kahn T. (2013). Offline Issues, Online Lives? The Emerging Cyberlife of Feminist Politics in Urban India. In (S. Roy, Ed.,) South Asian Feminisms; Paradoxes and Possibilities (pp. 108-126). London, Zed Books DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350221505.ch-005
Molyneux M. (1985). Mobilization without Emancipation? Women’s interests, the State, and Revolution in Nicaragua. Feminist Studies, 11(2), 227-254. https://doi.org/10.2307/3177922 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3177922
Neely C. L. (2008, April). Body Evidence: Intimate Violence against South Asian Women in America [Review of the book Indian Feminisms: Law, Patriarchy and Violence in India by GeetanjaliGangoli]. Violence against Women, Vol. 14(4), 496-501. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801208315107 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801208315107
Oshana M. (2006). Personal Autonomy in Society. Ashgate, (pp.1-17).
Post-Separation Abuse in Domestic Violence Cases: Out of the Frying Pan of Domestic Abuse and into the Fires of DV Homicide, Infanticide, and Child Sexual Abuse. SPIRITUAL ALLIANCE TO STOPINTIMATE VIOLENCE (2014) available at http://saiv.org/post separation-abuse-in domestic-violence-cases.
Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005.
Ray R. (1999), Calcutta: A Hegemonic Political Field, In Fields of Protest: Women’s Movements in India. University of Minnesota Press, (pp. 41-62).
Ruri I. (2003). Engendering the Concept of Peace: on Violence Against Women. The Asia Pacific Journal, Vol.1(4), pp.1-3, file:///C:/Users/hp/Desktop/S.498A/New%20folder/article_2309.pdf
Sangari K. (1995). Politics of Diversity: Religious Communities and Multiple Patriarchies. Economic and Political Weekly, 30 (51), 3787-3810.
Solanki G. &Gangoli G. (2016). Defining Domestic Violence and Women’s Autonomy in Law. Socio-legal Review, Vol. 12 (1), 68-76.
Solanki G. (2011). Adjudication in Religious Family Laws: Cultural Accommodation, Legal Pluralism and Gender Equality in India. Cambridge University Press, (pp. 31-89). https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511835209 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511835209
Solanki G. (2013). Beyond the Limitations of an Impasse: Feminism, Multiculturalism, and Legal Reforms in Religious Family Laws, Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies, 40(1), 83-111. https://doi.org/10.1080/02589346.2013.765678 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02589346.2013.765678
Solanki G. (2017). A Court of her own: Autonomy, Gender, and Women’s Courts in India. In BanoSamia (Ed.,) Gender and Justice in Family Law Disputes: Women, Mediation and Religious Arbitration (pp. 215-245).Waltham: Brandeis University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv102bhb9.13
Solanki G., Geetanjali G. (2016). Defining Domestic Violence and Women’s Autonomy in Law. Socio-Legal Rev. 12, 51.
Stark, E. (2007). Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women In Personal Life. Oxford University Press, (pp.205).
Thiara R. and Gill A. (2012). Domestic Violence, Child Contact and Post-Separation Violence Issues for South Asian and African-Caribbean Women and Children: a Report of Findings (The University of Warwick, NSPCC, and the University of Roehampton), available athttps://library.nspcc.org.uk/HeritageScripts/Hapi.d ll/filetransfer/2012DomesticViolenceChildContactPostSeparationViolenceReport.pdf?filename=AA58F75 CEDE68892A73FB681FE246B8371684F102172D08A780A14959D3BCE5747137B3B2A935011CB 8EC3068664FF481AA6D2524E357BAB96C006752CCD756759AD77BD1E389823A55CFAAE74B2EE64F46C611AD1724BE1AC500B025490CCB1CD8D9D26B00674E723A731951BB13FBE2976B014838E6BBB09AEF852A6647F27D53F9AD07F9EC2F1BBAB21210E2AFA8C9F4D24E678FF57F3C9FD08F8CB487807F650A66F6219432A8AE7955790B0AC10517B216FE86F89CF7F033C0460B435E1F6CD02978C0057862839F95F28E2&DataSetName=LIVEDATA(last visited 20 April 2019)
Vibhuti, S. P. (1983). The Anti Rape Movement in India. In M. Davis (Eds.) Third World, Second Sex: Women’s Struggles and National Liberation (180-190). London: Zed Press.