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Just one?!I would decriminalize prostitution in every state. I would make null and void every prostitution penal code and related statute.I would also go after moral turpitude laws.Moral turpitude - Wikipedia“Moral turpitude is a legal concept in the United States and some other countries that refers to "an act or behavior that gravely violates the sentiment or accepted standard of the community". This term appears in U.S. immigration law beginning in the 19th century.”I would also like to see anti discrimination laws established or existing anti discrimination laws amended to include protections on behalf of sex workers and porn performers so they cannot be denied employment over their past work or charges.There are laws in place which address forced sex labor and a legal distinction should be made between forced sex labor and erotic services as a profession!ESPLERP publishes a policy agenda defining our ASKS….ESPLERP Policy Agenda 2018Erotic Service Providers Legal Education and Research Project (ESPLERP) 2018 Policy Agenda:This Policy Agenda promotes a rights-based approach, whereby consenting adults in the sex industry are neither perpetrators in need of punishment nor victims in need of rescue, but rather individuals with rights and agency who deserve to be recognized as free to make their own choices about their bodies and sexual behavior.Some legislatures are already making progress in this area. For example in 2017:● the District of Columbia moved to decriminalize sex work to promote public safety and health – Promoting Public Safety and Health DRAFT● New Hampshire established a committee to study decriminalizing sex work – New Hampshire HB287 | 2017 | Regular Session.We are hopeful that this Policy Agenda serves as a roadmap both for legislators and organizations, to help them adopt internal and public policies as well as madvance incremental legislation to address the discrimination and stigmatization that affects the sex worker community in general as a result of criminalization of prostitution in specific.ESPLERP Mission:The Erotic Service Providers Legal, Education and Research Project (ESPLERP) is a diverse community-based erotic service provider led group which seeks to advance sexual privacy rights through legal advocacy, education, and research. In our legal advocacy, we create change through impact litigation and policy statements. This often involves education activities for policy makers and the public. And in our research work, our evaluation tool (ESPLERP Research Evaluation Tool) helps the public and academics maintain ethically and scientifically rigorous standards.As a prime example of impact ligitation, in March 2015, ESPLERP filed a complaint with the United States Federal District Court (http://esplerp.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/001_Complaint.pdf), known as ESPLERP v Gascon [case 16-15027], which challenged California’s anti-prostitution law, Penal Code 647(b), arguing for the decriminalization of sex work – that these laws deprive individuals of the fundamental right to engage in consensual, private sexual activity.We have some heavy hitters on our side. Decriminalization of sex work is supported by Amnesty International, the World Health Organization, the Lancet, Human Rights Watch, and the UN Global Commission on HIV and the Law. And our case is supported by amicus briefs from over thirty civil rights and LGBTQ organizations, including the ACLU, Lamdba Legal, the Free Speech Coalition, and the Transgender Law Center – Amicus Briefs Filed In Support Of ESPLERP v Gascon.In October 2017, ESPLERP v Gascon was heard before a three judge panel at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco – see ESPLERP V GASCON ORAL ARGUMENTS - DECRIMINALIZE - SEX WORKER RIGHTS. But in February 2018, the panel dismissed our case.The legal process is slow and long-winded, but it is an important strand in our fight for sexual privacy.But equally, as well as being criminalized, sex workers are subject to significant social and economic stigma and discrimination.Therefore, the Erotic Service Providers Legal Education and Research Project (ESPLERP) sets forth the following practical legislative steps toward enfranchising all aspects of sex work:Definitions and Community:We define an erotic service provider (aka sex worker) as anyone, who earns a living from their erotic labor, including prostitutes (whether working indoors in massage parlors or brothels, in their homes or on an outcall basis to homes or hotels, or outdoors on the street), exotic or burlesque dancers and strippers, adult film performers, escorts, courtesans, dominants, submissives, phone sex operators and webcam performers.Anyone who consensually engages the services of an erotic service provider, we consider a client – not a “trafficker” or an “exploiter”, and also not a “john” (a slang term that is sexist and derogatory).Directly relying for their livelihood on the jobs of erotic service providers are support staff who act in capacities such as receptionists, agents, managers, drivers, warehouse workers, security, photographers, and even janitors in adult clubs.Beyond these support staff, there are also third parties whose livelihoods rely more indirectly but often substantially upon erotic service providers, such as website owners and operators, hairdressers, makeup artists, dance club owners, gym owners and personal trainers, taxi and rideshare providers, and even hospitality industry staff who work in the hotels and other establishments used by erotic service providers and their clients.We consider part of our community anyone who is an erotic service provider or who knowingly and consensually hires, pays, or provides support to an erotic service provider, and also our friends and family members who support us (whether in a formal or informal capacity).Background:Legislation has too often relied upon, or been an accomplice to, the criminalization of our labor as prostitutes / sex workers. We believe that, as argued in ESPLERP v Gascon [case 16-15027], this is clearly in violation of our constitutional right to sexual privacy.Many statutes define erotic service providers as “victims”, fail to recognize the agency of erotic service providers or our clients, and fail to provide equal protection under the law for members of our community. Labeling us as victims encourages a law enforcement approach toward our community, since the presence of a “victim” implicitly assumes the existence of corresponding “perpetrators” who must be brought to justice.The state commits violence against sex workers by:● harassing them – the Urban Justice Center found that 30% of street-based sex workers in New York had been threatened with violence by police officers, while 27% actually experienced violence at the hands of police – Revolving Door - Fact Sheet● arresting them — prostitution arrests are the usual means by which persons are labeled sex trafficking victims● victimizing them during incarceration (from other inmates, guards, from losing income, from being forced to work, from being away from family)● denying them access to support services, legal advocacy and safe space shelter● forcing them into state-provided or state-funded “diversion services”, which typically offer arrested sex workers the only way to avoid further prosecution● fining them, subjecting them to probation and loss of rights, and saddling them with a damaging criminal record.Anti-Trafficking:Laws like the Federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act and California’s Proposition 35, FOSTA, SESTA use overly broad definitions which define our everyday personal and professional relationships as criminal associations, essentially defining our spouses, domestic partners, boyfriends and girlfriends, roommates, landlords, support staff, and others, may be prosecuted as sex traffickers and even forced to register as “sex offenders”.There are vast Federal investments in grants to “anti-trafficking” NGOs, where in collaboration with Federal and State agencies, they mount high profile prostitution sting operations under the guise of “rescue” such as Operation Cross Country (Is Operation Cross Country the Best Way to Fight Child Sex Trafficking?), which typically fail to find “traffickers”, but do criminalize consensual sex workers and their clients, and certainly do not provide services (such as counselling, housing, education) to ensnared individuals who are just trying to make a living.This slew of trafficking laws put the lives of both coerced victims and consenting erotic service providers in danger by maintaining a black market which attracts violence and creates unsafe working conditions. The cover story of the November 2015 issue of Reason Magazine accurately declares that “The War on Sex Trafficking Is the New War on Drugs” (The War on Sex Trafficking Is the New War on Drugs).In effect, the “War on Sex Trafficking” is a war on people who exchange sex for money.Another major consequence of the current approach to “sex trafficking” is that law enforcement is empowered to seize property, without due process, even if the property owner is never charged with a crime. In practice, property seizure results in untraceable profit for law enforcement agencies and their non-profit collaborators. For example, the Department of Homeland Security seized $1.4 million from Rentboy.com, and we have no idea how that money was spent. The only people who do not benefit from such seizures are the sex workers on the sharp end.The narrative on sex trafficking has now expanded to include “children” – whereby everyone under 18 who is found to be involved in prostitution is automatically defined as a “trafficked victim” – per the 2003 Federal Reauthorization Trafficking Victims Act. And in addition, at the State level, “Safe Harbor Laws” are being touted as a means to recognize youth as “victims” – which implies that no charges of prostitution should result. However, both the Federal and State approaches remand underaged people into “protective custody”, where they are often held in “witness protection” until they testify against someone. Therefore, laws like California SB1322 that mandates law enforcement to transfer such youth to “welfare services” actually violates these youths right to due process. (SB-1322 Commercial sex acts: minors.).In contrast to this law enforcement focus, research shows that funding long term necessities for youth (safe housing, employment, education, food, and money) is a far better approach – https://www.courtinnovation.org/sites/default/files/documents/Youth%20Involvement%20in%20the%20Sex%20Trade_3.pdfPrinciples:We believe the following principles should be paramount in all legislative initiatives that affect our community.1. Nothing About Us, Without Us – When it comes to laws affecting people involved in the sex industry, the voices of those stakeholders must be heard front and center, and attitudes that “other” us and deny our agency must be excised from the legislative process.2.Our Bodies, Our Rights – Consenting adults have the right to be free from state criminalization of their sex lives, whether or not money is exchanged or any other consideration is involved.3.Individual Privacy, Institutional Transparency – Any legislation that affects our community must protect our privacy, and must guarantee that government agencies and service providers operate are held accountable for treating people humanely, non-coercively, and with integrity, dignity and respect.Policy Agenda:The criminalization of consensual sex creates a system with multiple levels of social and institutional discrimination. We therefore call for a rights-based approach which recognizes consenting adults in the sex industry as neither perpetrators in need of punishment nor victims in need of rescue, but rather individuals with rights and agency who deserve to be free to make their own choices about their bodies and their sexual relations.We therefore propose the following legislative steps toward ensuring greater safety and enfranchisement for erotic service providers…1. End discrimination against erotic service providers, clients and support staffa.Repeal moral turpitude lawsThese archaic laws limit the ability of people to gain employment after a prostitution arrest. Even non-criminalized erotic service providers such as exotic dancers, adult film performers, massage parlour staff, agency support staff, phone sex operators, professional dominatrixes/submissives and webcam performers may be negatively impacted by these laws. For example, Stacie Halas, a permanent certified teacher, was dismissed by her employer, Oxnard School District, when they learned of her previous employment in adult film – http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/120680877-Stacie-Halas-decision.pdf.b.Prohibit discrimination in access to publicly funded servicesIn its 2015 Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights (UPR Report of the United States of America), the State Department affirmed United Nations Recommendation #86, stating, “We agree that no one should face violence or discrimination in access to public services based on sexual orientation or their status as a person in prostitution”. But there are numerous instances of State laws and regulations that still discriminate against our community. For instance, the California Victims Compensation Fund maintains language banning those who have been injured in the course of a prostitution transaction from receiving benefits. Language singling out people who work or have worked in porngraphy and/or prostitution is another form of victim-blaming and is completely inappropriate treatment of victims of sexual assault.c.Prohibit discrimination in judicial proceedingsVery often, erotic service providers are treated unfavourably in family court hearings (for example, covering child custody and/or divorce settlements). For example, Jessica Hernandez lost custody to an abusive partner, who subsequently killed the child, because the judge disdriminated against her based on her legal occupation as a stripper – Mother of slain child blames judge for death.d.Prohibit the use of sex worker status as grounds for discriminationPeople applying to State or local government for housing, education, or employment, should not be subject to discrimination based on their occupation. But, for example, Oakland’s 2014 “nuisance ordinance” targets prostitutes, and allows for the removal of tenants due to their perceived status. Such laws place the onus on the person being discriminated against to prove that they are not a prostitute. And mean that low-income tenants, transgender residents, and people of color are targeted and made homeless.2.Grant immunity from prosecution for prostitution offences to erotic service providers and our clients and support staff when they report more serious crimesCurrent legislation discourages erotic service providers, our clients and support staff, from reporting serious crimes. For example, the excessive fines imposed by California Proposition 35 discourages reporting crimes. This provides cover to the small number of actual sex traffickers, corrupt law enforcement officers, coercive third parties, and others who prey upon erotic service providers while leaving victims and witnesses of crime exposed to penalties.3.Establish a ‘Vacatur Law’ to automatically remove prostitution convictions and arrests from criminal and public recordsA ‘Vacatur Law” should be established whereby prostitution convictions and arrests can be automatically and completely removed from criminal and public records, without requiring people with criminal records to go through a complicated, onerous and expensive legal process.4.Prohibit the possession of condoms as evidence of prostitution in arrests or prosecutionsIn many jurisdictions, law enforcement and prosecutors can use possession of condoms as evidence of prosecution. In California, AB 336 went some way toward addressing this issue, but it still left the door open for prosecutors to make special motions allowing condoms to be used as evidence.5.Prohibit gender identity, sexual orientation and racial profiling of sex workersAs the ACLU argues in its supporting amicus brief for ESPLERP v Gascon (http://esplerp.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/22-Brief-of-American-Civil-Liberties-Union-Foundation1.pdf), legislation criminalizing sex workers, their clients and support staff, is “discriminatorily enforced against women (transgender and cisgender) and people who are LGBTQ and gender non conforming”. Women of color, transgender women and LGBTQ youth should not have to fear being arrested for prostitution just because a law enforcement officer considers their appearance indicative of prostitution.6.Prohibit mandatory HIV testing and repeal laws that criminalize HIV positive statusWith new medical advances against HIV (such as Truvada), the current level of state coercion employed against people with compromised immune systems is inappropriate. In California, with the passing of SB 239 in 2017, knowingly exposing a sexual partner to HIV without disclosing the infection, is now a misdemeanor, which is the same status as other STDs. We supported SB 239, but we need legislation to go further and decriminalize HIV status altogether.7.Monitor peer counseling ‘services’ provided by anti-trafficking or anti-prostitution non-profit groups and rape crisis centers receiving public fundingAnti-trafficking groups, anti-prostitution groups and rape crisis centers in receipt of public funds should be subject to independent ethics oversight. For example, Bay Area Women Against Rape, employed in the past an older man as a peer counsellor, who in additional to providing ‘counciling to adult women, as accompanied law enforcement on anti-prostitution sting operations claiming to rescue trafficked victims, specifically minors, and then acted as a primary “peer” counselor for the “rescued” minors. This presents a clear ethical conflict. And an older man counseling a minor does not meet the definition of peer-to-peer counseling let alone women in general. Such arrangements are ripe with potential for self dealing and conflict of interest and should be subject to independent ethics oversight.8.Implement a grievance process in publicly-funded anti-prostitution/anti-trafficking groups, rape crisis centers and domestic violence sheltersNon-profits and NGOs that provide services to prostitutes or trafficking victims, in particular rape crisis centers and domestic violence shelters, should be required to notify all service recipients of the process by which they can file complaints about the quality of the services they receive. State records of all such complaints should be maintained and available to the public, and any non-profits or NGOs that show consistently poor user satisfaction or engage in unacceptable practices should promptly be made ineligible for public funding.9.Implement public reporting requirements for law enforcement agencies that perform prostitution and human trafficking arrests, incarcerations and convictionsCurrently law enforcement agencies and task forces that perform prostitution and human trafficking operations, arrests, incarcerations and convictions, operate with a near complete absence of transparency. For example those that are listed here in the recent new report. More than 500 arrested, dozens saved in statewide crackdown on human trafficking They should be subject to Federal, State, county or city oversight, and be required to:a. make all meetings open to the publicb. publish names and roles of task force membersc. publish annual audits with all costs, including overtime pay, and any costs incurred by participating non-profitsd. publish anonymised details of arrests and convictions, together with demographic data (gender, age, race) on those who have been arrested and/or convictede. publish all Memoranda of Understanding between task forces, law enforcement agencies, non-profits or other agenciesf. implement public reporting requirements for publicly-funded non-profits and NGOs that provide services related to prostitution or human trafficking.10. Expand Privacy LawsWe require laws that protect the digital privacy of erotic service providers. The USA has signed on to the the UN Treaty on International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights), but there are many ways in which developments in surveillance have premptively violated our privacy.a. Stingray devices (also known as International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI)-catchers) were initially developed for the military and intelligence community, but are now in widespread use by local and State law enforcement agencies, who use them to violate the privacy of erotic service providers. There is clearly a need for laws banning the use of these devices without a warrant to ensure that constitutional rights are protected.b. Our images are routinely scraped from public online ads sites and are published onto other online sites without our permission. This activity should be made criminally illegal, as erotic service providers have limited access to civil courts to pursue justice.c. We oppose license schemes that would expose erotic service providers to harassment and discrimination – such as requiring our legal names, date of birth, and social security numbers, and requiring us to submit to criminal background checks (Do licensing rules put adult entertainers at risk?). For example, a privacy watchdog in the Netherlands found that compulsory registration of sex workers breached privacy rules (http://thttp://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2017/08/registration-of-sex-workers-breaches-right-to-privacy-says-court/11. Protect the privacy of erotic service providers, clients, and support staff during undercover sting or surveillance operationsLaw enforcement agencies who invite journalists/media or members of nonprofits to accompany them on operations targeting the erotic service provider community should be required to inform such third parties that they are not allowed to film or record a person who is caught up in an operation, being arrested or in custody, without that individual’s consent. Such filming by “embedded” journalists and others violates our right to privacy, leads to exploitation of individuals, and stigmatizes the industry as a whole (see walk-a-mile-in-my-shoes/the-rescue-scam and Starchild’s testimony about having his rights violated during a prostitution sting operation. Starchild testimony.12. Establish regulations restricting prosecutorial misconductIt is unacceptable for prosecutors to coerce defendants in sex trafficking and prostitution cases into giving up their rights to due process and their day in court by threatening to go after them with draconian charges if they don’t accept plea bargains. There is a growing movement calling for limitations on prosecutors’ ability to force defendants to plea to charges they may not have committed. The State should establish strong penalties for such misconduct to deter prosecutors from abusing their power.13. Prohibit sexual contact by law enforcement during investigationsLaw enforcement officers and their agents should be prohibited from any sexual contact, including penetration, with anyone who is under investigation and/or in their custody or who are victims and/or . /,witnesses. Any violation should be prosecuted as a criminal sexual assault offence and restitution should be obtainable in civil courts. For example, Michigan Governor signed into law House Bill 4355 and Senate Bill 275 in 2017 outlawing police having sex with prostitutes on duty by removing an exemption that previously blocked their prosecution. Alaska State bills HB112 and SB73 propose to take legislation one step further and make it felony criminal acts for officers to have sexual contact and penetration with those they are investigating for prostitution.Conclusion:In conclusion, anti prostitution and anti trafficking laws contribute to the disenfranchisement of our community. This disenfranchisement, and a lack of public accountability in law enforcement, state agencies and nonprofits, misallocates precious taxpayer resources, as well as deterring reports from community members who have been actual victims of rape, robbery, theft, coercion, battery, assault, stalking, or murder. Continuing these failed policies based on faulty definitions is going in precisely the opposite direction to the growing global consensus on the human rights of erotic service providers and clearly puts members of our community at risk while undermining public safety.Erotic Service Providers Legal, Education and Research Project (ESPLERP)2261 Market St. #548 San Francisco, CA 94114info(AT)Sex Workers and Erotic Service Providers Legal, Educational and Research Project, esplerp.org, ESPLERP Legal Challenge

I read an article in Tehelka (magazine) by Aradhna wal. And whatever I read in the article, i could just feel every line of it. Just that i don't want to get any personal here and without discussing what i have seen in different families, would like to share the article.In a sunny schoolroom, off a small dusty lane in Madanpur Khadar, a resettlement colony on the outskirts of New Delhi, a group of 10 women are talking amongst themselves. Some giggle nervously. With a reporter in their midst, they’re too shy to make anything other than small talk, until Bhagwati, a slender, self-assured woman who looks younger than her 39 years, speaks up. She gives a clear, unwavering account of a marriage that had become a living hell. “For many years, I didn’t even know whatdomestic violence meant. I would just take the anger, the shouting, and the beatings. He would hit me for the smallest of reasons. If there was too much salt in the food, I’d get slaps across my face.” After the beatings, came the rapes. “He would force me into bed for sex. Aisa lagta tha ki uske maarne ka maksad sirf mujhe nanga karne ka tha (It felt as if his beating was aimed at getting me naked).”Marital rape is defined simply as non-consensual sex where the perpetrator is the victim’s spouse. What Bhagwati’s husband did may have been rape but because he is married to her, and she is not under 15 year of age, it is not a criminal offence under the Indian Penal Code (IPC). In early 2000, two-thirds of married Indian women surveyed by the United Nations Population Fund claimed to have been forced into sex by their husbands. The last National Family Health Survey of India (2005-2006) found that 40 percent of women (aged 15-49), married at least once, had experienced physical, sexual or emotional violence perpetrated by spouses. This from a sample size of 1.25 lakh women across 29 states.The women in Madanpur Khadar, all domestic abuse victims, are gathered for a meeting with Jagori, a Delhi-based women’s rights NGO for which Bhagwati now volunteers. They laugh at the idea of their husbands asking for permission. “If they cared about consent, we wouldn’t be here,” Bhagwati says. People mostly associate violence and brutality with ‘stranger rape’. Indeed, they mostly associate rape with strangers. Despite the precipitous rise in stranger rape in Delhi to around 10 percent, the national figure still hovers around two percent, meaning that the overwhelming number of reported rapes are committed by men known to the victim. Yet, violent stranger rape is the subject of an anguished public discourse while the daily sexual violence women live with in their marriages is unacknowledged, kept hush-hush.‘My husband said that he spent money on me, how dare I not sleep with him. But he never once kissed me. On our wedding night he had sex with me seven times. I was in so much pain I couldn’t move’Neha, 26 | Lucknow | SeparatedTalking to gender rights activists, field workers, lawyers, counsellors, and women across India, it becomes abundantly clear that sexual abuse in marriages (of which the penetrative act of marital rape is just one part) is rife across regions, classes and communities. Such abuse exists, according to Flavia Agnes, the lawyer and feminist, “in a continuum of a range of violence that takes place within the matrimonial relationship.” Violence can include excessive sexual demands, making your wife perform sex acts despite her protests, forcing her to watch and reenact porn, or verbally humiliating her during sex. But rape in India is accompanied by a culture of shame and silence, enforced and internalised by victims. Women, particularly married women, are conditioned to not talk about abuse.Unlike with most stranger rape, the sexual violence in a marriage is meted out systematically over time, until behaviour that would be criminal outside marriage becomes acceptable. Violence that should be an aberration, a shock, becomes normal. Imagine such a life in which unrelenting fear is normal, in which you are forever uncertain what might trigger your husband’s wrath, in which saying no to sex is unthinkable. You might then empathise with and perhaps even begin to understand the sort of life Bhagwati has led. Or taste the sickening brew of fear and shame that pushed 28-year-old Anita, a market research employee from Lucknow, to attempt suicide.Anita was married in 2005, to a man in Maurana village in Unnao district, UP. The abuse started almost immediately. Her husband forced her to be available for sex at his beck and call, day or night, sometimes both. He made her perform oral and anal sex despite her resistance. He wouldn’t even let her leave the bed to go to the bathroom. “This was not a marriage. There was no love between us,” Anita says now. “He was just not concerned with me, never bothered even to talk to me.” His utter indifference and constant demands on her body took their toll. Depressed, afraid, and full of hate for her husband and herself, Anita stopped eating and fell frequently ill. Each time the doctor would tell her husband to abstain from sex for the sake of his wife’s health, he ignored the advice. “He would deny that he that done anything wrong,” she says of her husband. “So many times I tried talking to him, I tried compromising, but he never listened.”‘My husband raped and beat me even when I was pregnant. Three months ago, I tried to commit suicide’Smita, 35 | New Delhi | SeparatedSuicide seemed the only escape. Sadly, Anita could not even rely on support from family and friends. “I asked them to help me,” she says, “but they didn’t listen, didn’t want to understand.” When she found the courage to run away, her family forced her to attempt a compromise, to go back to her abusive husband. Relief came only when Anita got in touch with the Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives (AALI), a feminist group in Lucknow that helped her file for divorce. Her husband agreed for a divorce on mutual grounds, only after AALI lawyers warned him about cases under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 (DV Act).Anita’s case is a typical one — the early onset of abuse; the husband who doesn’t care; families that don’t support women leaving their marriages; a culture of shame. When the Delhi gangrape caused frenzied discussion on sexual abuse in a patriarchal society, the government had an opportunity to do the right thing by married women. But the Parliamentary Standing Committee chose to exclude marital rape from the Criminal Amendment Bill 2013. Criminalising marital rape, the committee argued, would weaken traditional family values. As if the institution of marriage were built entirely on a man’s entitlement to his wife, as if she were his property. It is an inherently skewed gender equation. Sex for a married woman is a matter of submitting to her partner’s pleasure. A married woman has no autonomy, no rights over her body. It is almost like the doctrine of coverture followed in England and the United States well into the 19th century, in which a married woman’s rights were essentially signed over to her husband. Back then, British feminists argued that marriage amounted to little more than legal prostitution.‘It feels as if he was like a lion who could come into a jungle, do whatever he wanted and disappear. No one could stop him’Sujata, 30 | Hyderabad | SeparatedBhagwati’s husband clearly thinks the same, refusing to give her money for food and clothes for herself and her children when she began to resist his demands for sex. He was only doing what society enabled. As the lawyer Indira Jaising says, by accepting that marriage presumes consent, we have “legitimised an act of violence associated with sex”. The logic of men like Bhagwati’s husband is crude: sex is the price of food and shelter. Neha, a former school teacher from Lucknow, says her husband told her point blank that he had spent money to marry her and thus had every right to sex.She recalled in detail her horrifying wedding night, when her husband had sex with her seven times, leaving her crying in excruciating pain and unable to move. “It could be any time of the day, anyone could be in the house, I could be menstruating, it didn’t matter to him,” she says. “He would use abusive words, kick me, make me perform oral sex. And if I refused he would hit me. If I screamed he would tell people I was mad.” Neha tried talking to her parents. Their advice was for her to adjust to her new home. Her husband drank daily and the violence escalated to the point where he began harassing her outside the school where she worked. She had to leave her job. Like Anita, Neha too talks about the lack of love and affection in her marriage. “It was rape,” she says, “not a relationship.” As of now, her complaint is being heard by their gurudwara, as her family is too scared to seek legal redress. “He’s richer and more powerful than me. Will the police listen to me, a lone woman? How will I fight him?”‘I was so scared of my husband, and hated myself so much that I tried to kill myself ’Anita, 28 | Unnao, UP | DivorcedThis feeling of inadequacy, of utter helplessness is all too familiar to any woman who has faced or continues to face abuse. There is nowhere to turn. Not to family, for whom the stigma of a broken marriage appears to override all other concerns. Which is why, the most common advice given to women is to adjust. When Bhagwati began to attend Jagori’s meetings, and began to stand up for herself, her family was appalled. Relatives tried to talk her down from her ‘rebellion’. Please your husband, they told her. Learn to live with him, to make the peace. “When I would refuse,” she says, “they would get so angry, they would tell my husband to beat me more.”Age, social standing, none of it seems to matter. Kameshwari, for instance, is a 60-year-old woman from a village near Aelur, Andhra Pradesh. For years she was raped and beaten by her husband who branded her an unfit, sexually unsatisfying wife. She’s finally ready to leave her 65-year-old abusive husband but her octogenarian mother won’t hear of it. She is dead against the breaking up of a marriage.If overbearing, controlling family isn’t enough, when women do summon the courage to leave, or to complain about their husband’s abuse they also need to deal with the police. Indian police is notorious for its callousness towards sexual complaints of any nature. The women of Madanpur Khadar talk about the contempt with which the police treat married women who complain of abuse, either siding with their husbands or calling them to the police station alone and keeping them there well into the night. Neha, from Lucknow, says she went to the police a two years ago. “They shooed me away. They told me to stay at home with my husband like good women are supposed to.” Several victims of domestic abuse in Delhi said how hard it was to even get their complaint registered. When TEHELKA spoke to Suman Nalwa, the Deputy Commissioner of the Crime Against Women Cell in Delhi, she denied any knowledge of the police not registering complaints of sexual abuse. When asked why she thought women were hesitant to approach the police, she said, “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask them.”‘I bled for days after my husband raped me, and my in-laws thought I had gotten pregnant by another man. My children would go hungry and thirsty if I would say no to my husband’Jaya, 28 | Lucknow | SeparatedThe uncaring attitudes of the police, of family members, are for abused women confirmations of their worthlessness. In other words, they are a continuation of the abuse begun by their spouses. In an abusive marriage, the victim’s vulnerabilities are preyed upon. Beyond sex, many say, their husbands could barely bring themselves to acknowledge their wives’ existence. They were, they say, to their husbands less than human. To talk of rape and sexual abuse in the context of a marriage challenges the culture’s notions of how marriages should function, challenges the sanctity granted to the institution, challenges the accepted gender roles — aggressive masculinity that validates itself by asserting dominance and passive femininity that seeks to keep the peace.Dr Harish Shetty, a Mumbai-based psychologist, points out that children internalise these codes, these so-called traditional family values. They see how their mothers rarely get angry at their fathers. It is women, he says, who bear the burden of negotiating peace, who grow up being taught to please everyone and say sorry. Their sons learn that to be a woman means to be submissive.“When our traditions dictate that satisfying her husband sexually is a wife’s duty, then we’re fighting against a widespread and entrenched mentality,” explains Sandhya Rani Valluripalli, one of Hyderabad’s doughtiest women’s rights activists. “Women are supposed to conform to the notion of bearing and honouring their husband’s name. Where is the space for a woman to talk about or understand sexuality? To express her needs? The public will turn on a woman who does so.” There does seem to be an extreme cultural hostility to and discomfort with women’s sexuality in contemporary India. Women are not supposed to be the initiators of sex, nor are they supposed to desire it. If they do, there is something wrong with them.‘When I stood up to my husband, my family told me to just listen to him and keep him happy’Bhagwati, 39 | New Delhi | She and her husband have been living in the same house but different rooms for six years“We are taught from before marriage that sex is a duty you have to perform for your husband,” says Bhagwati, “that’s why there is no question of them asking for our consent.” Most women TEHELKA spoke to for this article knew what they wanted from their marriages. They universally wanted their husbands to talk to them, to show some affection, to understand their needs. They wanted pleasure from sex, something most said they had known only rarely. “My husband never even kissed me,” says Neha. Fareeda, a volunteer at Jagori, like Bhagwati, says her work with the NGO’s support groups helped her understand that women too deserved pleasure from sex. “Jis cheez se auraton ko itna anand mil sakt hai, usko itna ganda kar diya hai (men have ruined something that could give so much pleasure to women),” she says, to loud agreement from the other women in the group. “A woman’s problems,” she adds, “start from and end in bed.” Fareeda has even managed to make her husband see the light. Sort of. He used to stop eating just to make her feel guilty on days she refused him sex. Now, she says, he is slowly coming to terms with the notion of consent.When couples meet with Dr Shetty, one of the most important things he says he does is to get them talking to each other about their sexual needs. “Most men rarely even kiss their wives,” he says. Little things help enormously. Getting men to walk alongside their wives, for instance, rather than ahead of them. Dr Shetty advises men to hold their wives close, to kiss them unexpectedly, to try to give them joy. It’s his attempt to chip away, however slightly, at the masculine edifice.Outside Dr Shetty’s office, though, sexual pleasure is still very much a male prerogative. Vineeta, a 32-year-old government employee from Lucknow, got married three years ago. Though the sex was mostly forced, there were rare occasions when she did feel some pleasure. But if she were to ever express that pleasure, her husband would become incensed and even suspicious. “What kind of relationship was it that I was too scared to feel pleasure in sex?” And if she were to say no to sex, he would say that another man must have just sated her – “tum kisi aur se bhari hui ho”. While riding pillion on his scooter, if her head moved in any direction away from his shoulder, he would scream at her publicly to stop looking at men on the street.He beat her and raped her with increasingly regularity. According to Vineeta, her husband would “hit me and then ask me whether that hurt a little or a lot.” Typically, he would taunt her, tell her that she was “too dark or too old and not worthy of his love.” It was her brother who finally brought Vineeta to AALI. She has now filed a civil suit under the DV Act, but wishes there was some way her husband could face criminal charges for what he did to her.‘My husband admitted openly that he rapes me. He said it to humiliate me. The last time we fought, he pushed a wooden toy inside me and broke my skull’Prabha, 40 | Lucknow | SeparatedAs in Vineeta’s case, sexual abuse is not just immediate physical violence but systematic mental abuse and psychological coercion. Women will routinely be told that they are not good enough in bed, not beautiful enough, not good at their chores, not worth anything. Threats will be directed at children. “If a woman says no to sex, the husband can refuse to feed and clothe their children,” says Flavia Agnes. “What will she do if there is no food on the table and no money to pay the children’s school fees?” Breaking down your wife, making her completely dependent on you, is a classic tactic of abusive husbands. In India, it is a tactic that is helped by social sanction, by the veneration of the marriage bond.Which is why, women in India don’t talk about abuse in a marriage. For every woman who has spoken up, there are countless others who have stayed mute. They are scared of a broken marriage, of what people might say, of becoming destitute. Many are dependent on their husbands for financial security. They have no place to go, no way to provide for themselves and their children. Their own families won’t take them back. Many times, women who approach activists for help end up going back to their husbands. Sruthi, for instance, a working-class Dalit woman from Bengaluru, went to the police to register a case against her in-laws for extorting money. She used this to force her husband to reduce the physical and sexual violence to which he had subjected her throughout their marriage. Within a month, she went back to him. As Dr Shetty observes, an abusive husband is better than an absent one.In his experience, Dr Shetty says he has found that women in India do not know how to live alone. They have never learnt to. Most often, they want to preserve the sanctity of their marriage. If they do try to live by themselves, they are viewed as sex objects, accessible and always available. A woman who has left her husband becomes incredibly vulnerable. “It’s a man’s world,” says Anita, explaining why she prefers the civil remedy of the DV Act, rather than pressing criminal charges against her husband. “He may go to jail, but people will point fingers at me. They’ll twist things to make it my fault.”This is a problem present across class boundaries. “Working class women still fight,” claims Madhu, a counsellor with Jagori, “but women in the upper middle classes clam up. For them it’s a matter of honour, social status, and wealth. It’s surprising. One would think, with their education, they would be more enlightened about women’s rights.” Renu Mishra, the Lucknow Programme Manager for AALI, told TEHELKA she had dealt with a woman in 2003, an educated upper middle class woman who had been sexually abused throughout her married life and never said a thing. She hadn’t even known it was abuse, submitting to her husband’s appetite because she didn’t want to make a fuss.‘My husband said it’s not a big deal for a woman to be hit by her husband. He would beat me and say that only he had a right to my body. If I ever got pleasure out of sex he would get suspicious and angry with me’Vineeta, 32 | Lucknow | SeparatedOf course, this is not true of all upper middle class women, just as the example of a Dalit woman is not true for all Dalits. The Mumbai-based sexologist, Dr Mahinder Watsa, for instance, insists that the well-to-do women he meets are assertive and expressive about their rights, that they expect to be treated as equal partners. As women make more money, he argues, they are less willing to put up with a husband’s abuse. He acknowledges, though, that even in his circles, including diplomats and wealthy businessmen, he has seen and heard of wife-beating and sexual abuse.For lawyers like Agnes, and Madhu Mehra, executive director for Partners for Law and Development, the pervasive nature of sex abuse make them wary of including marital rape within the rape laws. It would privilege the single act of penetration above all other forms of sex abuse. In Agnes’s experience, women seek protection, security and compensation, which are provided under the DV Act. She finds the Act an impressive piece of civil legislation. The provisions, and protection orders, were not there under the IPC and the DV Act includes sexual abuse (along with physical, verbal, emotional and economic abuse) among the forms of abuse perpetrated in a marriage.This helps women who do not want to talk about sexual abuse alone, says Agnes. Especially in a system in which “even Supreme Court judges make callous and unsubstantiated comments such as S498A is a ‘terrorist law’ through which women hold their husbands to ransom.” (S498A being a criminal law pertaining to cruelty to a woman in marriage.) Lawyers, Agnes says, often have to tone down accounts of sexual abuse in order for the judge to take the petition seriously. Civil remedies provide women with the recourse and protection they need. Still, some want at least the option of being able to file criminal charges. C, a transgender man from Tamil Nadu, was raped by his husband before he came out as a trans male. It took him 18 months to be able to leave the marriage. Today, he is vocal against marital rape, and says that if it were part of the rape laws he would file case against his former husband.‘My husband would rape me, threaten to divorce me, and then sleep in another bed, so that people would think he wasn’t having sex with me’Radha, 25 | New Delhi | SeparatedIn the end, though, both genders are implicated in marital rape (to varying degrees, of course): the men who think they are entitled to a woman’s body and who raise their sons to think so; the women who help perpetuate gender imbalance — the mothers who refuse to help their daughters, the mothers-in-law who view their daughters-in-law with suspicion and hostility, who further aggravate their sons against their wives. These may appear soap opera stereotypes but in conversation with survivors of marital rape, many held up. According to Harish Sadani, a Mumbai-based activist working with Men Against Violence and Abuse (MAVA), the problem is rooted in how our culture has shaped masculinity.He cites a 2012 UNICEF Global Report Card on Adolescents which shows that 57 percent of Indian boys and 53 percent of Indian girls, between the ages of 15 to 19, find nothing wrong in a wife being beaten if she hasn’t cooked the food well, answers back, fails to inform her husband before leaving the house, neglects the children, or refuses her husband’s demands for sex. There is also the 2011 study by the International Center for Research on Women, a Washington-based non-profit, which revealed that one in every five Indian men surveyed admitted to forcing their wives into sex. In his years working with young men, Sadani has seen how notions of machismo become inculcated from an early age. The movies they watch, the music they listen to, the power equations in their own homes, all combine to persuade them that they have “a license to sex” as young man once told Sadani.He does not, despite this, seek easy answers by blaming pop culture alone. There is no space, he says, for boys to talk about sexuality to counter all that they see and hear. Just as women have no space to talk about their desires, men have no space to understand sex as mutual pleasure and satisfaction for both parties. Sexual violence is not just a women’s issue, it is gender issue, where each generation keeps perpetrating the same vicious cycle. Masculinity dictates that men don’t talk about issues of sex, unless they’re bragging. Alcohol is set up as a demon, causing men to rape both strangers and their wives. But alcoholic rage is only symptomatic of the aggression towards women that men grow up with. “We need to help boys evolve a gender-equitable definition of masculinity,” says Sadani. “Sadly, most feminists I’ve come across don’t want to include men in their work.”With MAVA, Sadani runs premarital guidance workshops, where men talk about sex without immediately being labelled as abusers. Many times, this talking helps them sort out their aggression towards their partners. The sort of aggression that leads to a man forcing his wife to have sex with him so many times, and so roughly, that she bleeds for days on end, as was the case with Jaya, a domestic worker in Lucknow. The ingrained violence towards women that made her husband threaten to break her limbs off when she resisted. The suspicion with which society views women that leads her in-laws to think that Jaya’s bleeding was the result of her sleeping with another man. The violence that left Prabha, a cook from Lucknow, with horrific injuries after her husband inserted a wooden toy into her vagina and then bashed her head in. Or lead Smita, another Madanpur Khadar resident, to attempt suicide after countless rapes and beatings during which he would hit her, scratch her, tear her clothes off, even when she was pregnant. Her mother-in-law knew all this but did nothing.“Where there isn’t aggression, there is an apathy towards women and their sexuality,” says writer Mridula Garg, who wrote about marital sex abuse in her story Tuk. The story is told in the first person about a woman deeply in love with her husband who uses her for sex and rapes her one evening after losing at bridge. “Indian men” Garg says, “don’t know and don’t care about a woman’s satisfaction.” This disregard extends to her well-being, her diet, her likes and dislikes. Garg and Dr Shetty both point out the inability of many men to deal with a woman who has an independent mind. To deal with her husband’s inferiority, to keep him happy, even a high-earning, confident-seeming upper middle class woman will revert to the pliant type when the husband has senior colleague over for dinner.Our unwillingness to criminalise marital rape should force us to ask questions about what marriage means in our society. What are these traditional family values that the Parliamentary Standing Committee is so afraid will weaken were husbands who rape their wives sent to prison? Is the state really so intent on preserving an outmoded, irrelevant male dominance? And if the Indian marriage is so resistant to change, so indifferent to female sexuality, so ungenerous and inequitable, is it worth saving? If traditional values mean men continue to have it all their own way, expect those values to soon be discarded on the dustheap of an unbecoming history.And give me one reason, why shouldn't I be a feminist when i bear to live in such kind of a society?

“In 2030, we want to be able to talk about a world that has achieved gender equality, a 50:50 planet.”It has been multiple decades now that we are talking about ‘EQUALITY’. The word has literally flooded the entire print and electronic media. Everybody seems to be talking about equality, how it is essential for a healthy society and the various means and methods 2 achieve the same.One of the most notable manifestations of inequality worldwide is GENDER INEQUALITY. Consequent to a very strong feminist movement that began towards the middle of the twentieth century, throwing light on the gross inequalities and atrocities that women suffer on a day-to-day basis, a need was felt to make amendments in the law such that women could come on an equal footing with men. The legislations we started with, were fairly, perhaps fully legitimate for the times, but the dawn of the passing day has put men in such gullible a position, that they are victimized by the so-intended “women empowering” legislations. Much less has been said about how we have become a prison state by approving virtually every possible draconian law in the name of curbing crimes against women, condoning arbitrary arrests of ordinary citizens, and imprisoning them in deplorable conditions.Thus, this decade has acknowledged the need of a GENDER-NEUTRAL society. The Oxford Dictionary describes ‘Gender Neutrality’ as an adjective that is suitable for, applicable to, or common to, both male and female genders. It describes the idea that policies, language, and other social institutions should avoid distinguishing roles according to people's sex or gender, and emphasizes on the equal treatment of men and women legally with no discrimination. We envision a kind of society where equality will be established in its true sense, and established not at the cost of any gender!Given below is a detailed analysis of how the legislation in India is biased against men, with special emphasis on the Indian Penal Code, 1860, followed by a few suggestions to make the laws Gender-Just.Unjust Indian Penal CodeThe Indian Penal code, in its basic form, is the main criminal code of India, which lists all the cases and punishments that a person committing any crimes is liable to be charged with, and covers any Indian citizen or a person of Indian origin.S.2 of the said Code lays down that every person shall be liable to punishment under this Code and not otherwise for every act or omission contrary to the provisions thereof, of which he shall be guilty within India. As is established by this section, the law does not distinguish between criminals, and every person who has committed an offence is liable to punishment under the code. However, the assumed mindset that “all violence is male generated”, does not only create a gender divide in the society, but provides a shield to the crimes perpetrated by women.“Women commit crime for the same reasons that men do. Crime has no gender, and neither should our laws.”Now, let’s throw some light on a few anti-male provisions of the Indian Penal Code. Although the instances are plenty, we will limit our discussion to the four major areas of law, viz., a) Dowry Death and Cruelty against Women, b) Rape, c) Adultery, d) Laws dealing with Modesty of a Woman.Laws that Typically Favour WomenA) Section 304B (Dowry Death) and Section 498A (Cruelty Against Women):The term ‘Dowry Death’ sparks off vivid imaginations in one’s head of a woman being taunted and harassed for money and finally, hanged to death within the four walls of her house. Feminists have us believe that every unnatural or untimely death of a married Indian woman is dowry death. Not only that, the feminist hyperbole on “bride killing” and “dowry harassment” makes it look like Indian men have an uncanny propensity to commit violence on their wives for money and property.Section 304B states that,a) If the death of a woman is caused by burns or bodily injury, or any other abnormal circumstances,b) within seven years of her marriage,c) provided she has been subjected to cruelty or harassment by her husband, or any of his relatives, for, or in connection with demand for dowry,-such husband, or such relatives, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than seven years, but which may extend to imprisonment for life.Section 498A specifies that if cruelty and harassment are shown to be inflicted upon a married woman by her husband, or by any relative of her husband, such husband, or such relatives of the husband, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, and shall also be liable to fine. This section should be read along with S. 113A of the Indian Evidence Act to raise a presumption regarding abetment of suicide by the husband of a married woman.The above two sections are non-bailable, non-compoundable, and cognizable offences in India. The clear intention behind these sections is to fasten guilt on the husband, or in-laws, though they might not, in fact, have caused the death or injury! It has become a custom to claim that all the women have been “driven to suicide” due to dowry harassment. Under these sections, even if the allegation is false, there will be a trial and the husband is considered guilty until proven innocent. The Supreme Court of India has termed this misuse of the law “legal terrorism”.Justice Saldana’s remarks are a testimony to the way these laws are being misused to the detriment of innocent citizens:“…we need to sound a note of caution that the police and investigating authorities should not improperly and technically jump to the conclusion that merely because death has occurred that ipso facto a criminal offense has been committed. In as many as 44% of these cases prosecution is thoroughly unjustified. The consequences of these charges are extremely grave because the accused husband and invariably family members are placed under arrest. There are serious social and economic repercussions.”According to the National Crime Records Bureau statistics, in 2012, nearly 200,000 people including 47,951 women, were arrested on unestablished allegations of dowry offences. Surprisingly, only 15% of the accused were convicted.Every year, twice as many married men, compared to women, commit suicides succumbing to verbal, emotional, economic and physical abuse by their wives and in-laws. The recent demise of Pushkar Singh in 2008 is one of the countable few cases that at least caught some media attention. Sadly, even though his suicide note bears evidence to the fact that he was financially and emotionally destroyed because of false criminal cases filed against him and his family by his wife, she was not even called in for questioning by the police until some family rights activists mounted pressure on them. Deaths of these men make for the brief stories in newspapers stating that a certain man “killed himself due to family issues or financial problems”. Syed Makdoom’s Case met a similar fate.The Supreme Court, in the case of Sushil Kumar Sharma v. Union of India, observed that such provisions are intended to be used as a shield and not an assassin’s weapon.The Court and the Legislature have to make certain changes if the laws of matrimonial cruelty are to be of any deterrence. The current NDA government is working on the proposal to make these sections compoundable. This means that the law, if amended for the better, would have provisions for settlement between the warring couple, if the court allows it.Looking into the recent observations and the increase in the misuse of this Section, following suggestions are proposed:i) One of the most significant moot questions is, are these laws really helping curb the menace of dowry and cruelty against women? Is legal terrorism the solution to all of women’s problems? Are these laws really changing the mindset of the people who continue to treat women adversely?People who oppress women, continue to do it, whether with, or without the existence of such ‘women empowering’ legislations. What we really require is a social change, more than a legislative change.ii) Section 304B of the said Code is only a gender-biased duplication of the previous sections that deal with murder and abetment to suicide. This section, therefore, must either be repealed, or amended and made gender-neutral. Specifically, the word ‘spouse’ must be used instead of the words ‘husband’ and ‘wife’.iii) Burden of proof must lie on the complainant, and not on the accused, in alignment with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which proclaims that “everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty.”iv) In order to provide further relief, the offences could be made bailable and compundable.v) Women and their families, who file such false complaints, must be penalized heavily, either by way of fine, or imprisonment, or both.B) Section 375 (Rape)According to S. 375 of the IPC, you have to be a man to officially rape, and a woman to officially get raped! The section does not recognize men as rape victims. India’s anti-sodomy law, Section 377, is the only resort for male victims of sexual offences. However, the law is fraught with challenges. Even in cases where a male victim is assaulted by a male attacker, it is not actually considered as rape. The law does not outline any difference between consensual and non-consensual sex between male adults. Moreover, if a female is the perpetrator, the victim is left with no option to seek justice!It is interesting to note that in the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2013, the crimes of rape and sexual harassment were gender-neutral. The term “rape” was removed entirely and was substituted with “sexual assault”. However, strong objections were raised by women’s groups and the Act ended up making the offences of rape and sexual harassment gender-specific. There are various propositions put forth by feminists in support of this regard, such as, men not being as vulnerable, them always wanting sex, women’s incapability to rape men, men not being similarly affected by rape, so on and so forth.“I have doubts whether a woman can commit rape; the reason is that a man has to be aroused sexually to be able to have sex with a woman. If a woman tells a man that he must have sex with her, it won’t work because the man will be so frightened and disorientated that he won’t really be able to do it.” Sarrel and Masters (1982) conducted case studies on 11 men who had been sexually assaulted by women. The men went through humiliation, anxiety, fear, anger and terror and yet responded sexually. They had erections; several even reported ejaculation. The authors even concluded that anxiety increases sexual arousal.In a recent study, it was found that out of 222 Indian men being surveyed, 16.1% had been coerced into having sex. Despite male rape not being researched as widely as female rape, there are several statistics to suggest that men are raped and the prevalence of male rape is wider than is generally presumed. For instance, a 16-year-old boy claimed that his best friend’s mother had been sexually assaulting him for the past three months (2015). Male rape happens, but is seldom reported. Undoubtedly, countries with gender-neutral rape laws reportedly have the lowest rates of rape in the world.Crimes like rape and murder do not see age, caste, colour of skin, nationality and yes, even gender or sexual orientation. Rape is seen across the extremes of age, sex and geographical boundaries.All these facts indicate that there is a definite need to recognize and accept that men are raped, they also become victims of physical abuse and violence, and they deserve as much protection from such gross crimes, as women do. At a broader level, do not all crimes affect different types of victims in different ways? Yet, with a few exceptions, we prosecute based on the sameness of the crime, and not the sameness of the effect. The latter would essentially imply that certain victims are protected more than others, flying in the face of equality before the law.And in order for such crimes to be recognized, what is important is, that they must be reported substantially. We need to create an environment where the plight of such men is also heard, without the fear of being ridiculed. It is only the development and application of a gender-neutral law that will be effective in improving the reporting and registering of such crimes. The definition of rape must be reconsidered, sexual assault must be classified in accordance with various degrees of harm caused by each, and each must be defined in a comprehensive manner. Lastly, a system where one type of rape is given priority over others in the name of protecting women is self-defeating. Women and men (and other genders) need to unite and speak in one voice to build a culture against rape.Other aspects of Rape Laws:i) A man having sexual intercourse without a woman’s will - No guideline as to prove a woman’s will here. She might have had consensual sex and still allege rape with a vindictive attitude.ii) IPC 376B/C/D – Public servants/higher-ups seducing a woman under their position and having sex with her are liable to imprisonment. No such punishment exists for when women seek sexual favours from men. Similarly, there are no protections for men from false and frivolous allegations by women made with malicious intentions.iii) If a man has sex with a woman after promising marriage, he can't break up with the woman. If he does, according to the laws in India, he's a rapist. Reverse the genders and if a girl does the same, it will be labelled as ‘women empowerment.’iv) Age of consent: There is no age of consent for males. If a boy of 16 and a same-aged girl have consensual sex, the boy will be charged with rape!The facts highlighted above speak enough for themselves, and tell us how significant and urgent the need for gender-neutral rape laws in India is.C) Section 497 (Adultery) and Section 498 (Detaining with criminal intent a married woman)Section 497 of the IPC says, "Whoever has sexual intercourse with a person who is and whom he knows or has reason to believe to be the wife of another man, without the consent or connivance of that man, such sexual intercourse not amounting the offence of rape, is guilty of the offence of adultery and shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 5 years, or with fine, or with both. In such case, the wife shall not be punishable as an abettor."Thus, following points need to be highlighted:i) Adultery can be committed only by a man, and not by a woman. If a man has sexual intercourse with a married woman, and he does not have the consent of the husband of the woman for the sexual activity, such husband can prosecute the man, and the man only, for adultery. Further, Section 198 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 explicitly denies a husband the right to charge his wife with adultery and also denies a woman the right to charge her husband with adultery.ii) This brings us to realize that the law is unfair to both the sexes, as here, the wife is denied of any agency, and she can take no action against her husband, or her husband’s lover, for adultery, although the husband can prosecute his wife’s lover, but not his wife. The consent of the man is given legal sanction as against the consent of the woman who obviously takes equal part in the sexual activity. The rationale behind not punishing the woman seems to be a perspective of seeing the woman as infantile and incapable of making a decision about her sexual behavior, which seems to be a totally absurd concept in the present set of circumstances.iii) If the husband has an affair with an unmarried (or divorced, or widowed) woman, no one can initiate any action against anyone.iv) Only a man can be a seducer and women are powerless victims.Hence, it is established that whether biased against men or women, India’s adultery law is seriously messed up. The Supreme Court of India in 2011 observed that, "The provision (Section 497) is currently under criticism from certain quarters for showing a strong gender bias for it makes the position of a married woman almost as a property of her husband. But in terms of the law as it stands, it is evident from a plain reading of the section that only a man can be proceeded against and punished for the offence of adultery."In Sowmithri Vishnu v. Union of India, Sowmithri, whose lover was prosecuted for adultery, contended that the law was gender biased. Despite being an equal party in the offence, the woman was a ‘victim’- she was exempt from punishment, as a child would be, suggesting that the woman committing adultery is incapable of rational thought and therefore has no agency! This view is re-affirmed by the next code in series, Section 498:Section-498 – Enticing or taking away or detaining with criminal intent a married woman- “Whoever takes or entices any woman who is and whom he knows or has reasons to believe to be the wife of any other man, from that man, or from any person having the care of her on behalf of that man, with intent that she may have illicit intercourse with any person or conceals or detains with that intent any such woman, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both”.Unlike India, adultery is not a crime in most European Union countries, like the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland and Sweden. Most developed countries hold adultery as a ground for divorce and do not criminalize the act (and this holds for the husband and the wife). Sections 497 and 498 of the IPC hold no relevance in the modern context, because, a) women are themselves responsible for their sexual conduct. b) The very foundation of the law is shaken because of the presumption that a man is always the adulterer, and woman, a hapless victim! When sexual intercourse by its very nature involves two partners, how is it logically fair to hold only one of them responsible? Also, can a woman not be an abettor? To protect her from prosecution altogether is a mockery of Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution. We firmly believe that adultery should be de-criminalized, and if not, then the suggestion of Justice Malimath Committee to make Section 497 gender-neutral, thereby treating the infidel husband/wife alike, shall ensure great justice to both the sexes.D) Laws relating to the modesty of a woman:Section 354 deals with assault or criminal force with the intent to outrage a woman’s modesty. However, there is no such law made to protect the modesty of a man! There are cases where women bully men, and go unprosecuted, because the law of the country does not protect men from such crimes. The situation has become so adverse that if a man accidentally touches a woman in a crowded bus, and the woman protests even slightly, the man shall inevitably invite public outrage by fellow passengers, without even being given a chance to speak for himself!Via the Criminal Law Amendment Act 2013, four new sub-sections are added to Section 354-i) Section A: Lists out all the incidences of unwelcome advances, pornography, sexual remarks and favors which hurt the dignity of a woman, making them punishable with rigorous imprisonment and fine. And guess what, men’s dignity holds no value in the eyes of the legislators, because yes, men are always the perpetrators!ii) Section B: Enlists any attempt to disrobe a woman against her wishes liable to punishment for at least 3 years. Is it impossible to imagine if such a crime can be committed against a man?iii) Section C: Enlists voyeurism i.e. filming or taking pictures of any woman involved in a private act as a crime with punishment of at least 1 year imprisonment. Yes, nobody thought of protecting men from a similar crime!iv) Section D: One of the most effective sections, which has criminalized stalking a woman against her will and made it severely punishable with at least 3 years of imprisonment. And men can never be stalked!The water has literally touched the ceiling, and we urgently need a gender-neutral IPC to redress the aggrieved men in our society, and protect them from further victimization.Section 509 deals with words, gestures or acts intended to insult the modesty of a woman, and makes the perpetrator punishable with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both. On the face of it, such a legislation is gender-biased, and another instance of the numerous such ‘women safeguarding’ laws.Other laws, including an array of family laws, bill for protection of women at workplace, alimony law, child custody laws, etc., are also very notable examples of other enactments that are detrimental to men. However, they are outside the scope of this paper, and thus, are not discussed here in detail.Is gender-neutrality anti-feminism?The obvious answer is NO! Oxford Dictionary defines ‘feminism’ as advocacy of women rights on the ground of equality of sexes. Yes, EQUALITY OF SEXES. There were times when feminism was required, because women were subjugated due to draconian patriarchal legislations. Today, however, the situation has changed. Women have equal rights, and definitely, more legal privileges.As seen above, the laws we have, are used as weapon against men and their families. They are used to settle scores and take revenge. Since the basic genesis of feminism is equality, we all would accept the fact that gender-neutrality is the paramount step towards achieving it, and thereby, establishing Article 14 of the Constitution in its true sense. Hence, gender-neutrality is in no way against feminism. It rather seeks to achieve the feminist objective of equality!Also, is it justified to protect one sex at the cost of the other? Are we really helping women by these pro-women laws? Or are we still pushing them as well as this country backwards by constantly telling them that they are weak and hence need these extra benefits? How is depriving men enabling women? What we need is to spread legal awareness and awareness of women’s rights among the poor and illiterate in villages and help the real sufferers rathe­­­­­r than create an imbalanced society!How to achieve Gender-Neutrality?“Our job is not to figure out the ‘how’. The ‘how’ will show up out of the commitment and belief in the what.”Much has been said above regarding how our objective can be achieved with regard to particular crimes. Following are a few more suggestions made for our cause-1) What we essentially require here is accepting the fact that there can be crimes against men, that men also suffer, and that women can be perpetrators as well! We are really required to change our mindset! The process of socialization in the Indian society is so sexist, that we are somehow unable to accept that men can be violated as well! The kind of education that we provide our children with, should be based on equality, and not on differences!2) There have been campaigns and movements worldwide for the cause of men. International Men’s Day is celebrated on November 19 every year, from 2007, in response to International Women’s Day (March 8 of every year). We need to set up a dedicated ministry to safeguard men's rights and welfare or set up a men's commission, similar to those for the women. That, would be equality!3) We, as a society, really need to inculcate Gender-Sensitivity among ourselves, develop a feeling of respect and warmth towards the opposite sex, and understand that in order to uplift one section, we do not have to oppress the other! Wouldn’t it be very hypocritical for us to proclaim EQUALITY as a fundamental right, and then deny the same to men, through such detrimental laws? The concept of ‘Abala Nari’, which is so deeply entrenched in the current scenario, holds no water, as women have travelled a remarkable journey forward, and are indeed, in the present set of circumstances, not lagging behind.4) Legally, we need to ensure that gender-neutral language is used in our laws, and both the sexes are equally protected. Laws should not be based on the presumption that only one of the sexes is the perpetrator, and the other, a hapless victim! Strong legislations should be laid against false complainants causing unquantifiable miseries to the innocent victims.5) If we really want to establish a gender-just society, we need to recognize LGBT rights as well, because that will ensure both legal justice, and societal inclusion of all communities.6) Lastly, we need to realize that crime has no gender, and everyone should be deterred from committing it. It inflicts innumerable sufferings upon the victim, and he deserves justice!“Justice consists not in being neutral between right and wrong, but in finding out the right and upholding it, wherever found, against the wrong.”If we really want justice to prevail, if we really want people to have faith in the law, if we really want to proclaim equality and dignity, if we really want to rise above our shallow prejudices, if we really want humanity to supersede, we must want gender-neutrality as the solution!“One day our descendants will think it incredible that we paid so much attention to things like the amount of melanin in our skin or the shape of our eyes or our gender instead of the unique identities of each of us as complex human beings.”THANKYOUGender-neutral Indian Penal Code