ÿþ<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?> <html> <head> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="data:text/css;base64,77u/Ym9keSB7IA0KCWZvbnQtZmFtaWx5OnNlcmlmOyANCgltYXJnaW46MCBhdXRvOyANCgl3aWR0aDo5NjBweDsgDQp9DQp0YWJsZSB7IA0KCXdpZHRoOjEwMCU7IA0KCWJvcmRlci1ib3R0b206MnB4IHNvbGlkICMwMDA7IA0KfQ0KdGFibGUgdHI6Zmlyc3QtY2hpbGQgdGQgeyANCglib3JkZXItYm90dG9tOjFweCBzb2xpZCAjMDAwOyANCn0NCmRpdi5jb250ZW50IHsgDQoJd2lkdGg6ODAwcHg7IA0KCW1hcmdpbjoyMHB4IGF1dG8gMCBhdXRvOyANCn0NCmRpdi5jb250ZW50IHRhYmxlLCBkaXYuY29udGVudCB0YWJsZSB0ZCB7DQoJYm9yZGVyOm5vbmU7DQp9DQouaGlnaGxpZ2h0IHsNCgliYWNrZ3JvdW5kLWNvbG9yOiNGQ0YxOUE7DQp9" /> </head> <body> <div class="content"> <h3>against Women</h3> <p style="font-size:0.85em;">* Adopted by the Committee at its fifty-eighth session (30 June-18 July 2014).</p> <h2 style="font-weight:bold;">Concluding observations on the combined fourth and fifth periodic reports of India *</h2> <p>1.The Committee considered the combined fourth and fifth periodic reports of India (CEDAW/C/IND/4-5 and Corr.1 and Add.1) at its 1219th and 1220th meetings, on 2 July 2014 (see CEDAW/C/SR.1219 and 1220). The Committee s list of issues and questions is contained in CEDAW/C/IND/Q/4-5 and the responses of India are contained in CEDAW/C/IND/Q/4-5/Add.1.</p> <h3>A.Introduction</h3> <p>2.The Committee appreciates that the State party submitted its combined fourth and fifth periodic reports. It also appreciates the State party s written replies to the list of issues and questions raised by the pre-sessional working group and welcomes the oral presentation by the delegation and the further clarifications provided during the dialogue. The Committee regrets, however, that the delegation did not provide responses to some questions posed orally by the Committee.</p> <p>3.The Committee notes the State party s delegation, which was headed by the Secretary of the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Shankar Aggarwal, and included representatives of the ministries responsible for home affairs, external affairs, health and family welfare, social justice and empowerment and human resource development.</p> <h3>B.Positive aspects</h3> <p>4.The Committee welcomes the progress achieved since the consideration in 2007 of the State party s combined second and third periodic reports (CEDAW/C/IND/2-3) in undertaking legislative reforms, in particular the adoption of the following:</p> <p>(a)Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, in 2013;</p> <p>(b)Prohibition of Employment of Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, in 2013;</p> <p>(c)National Food Security Act, in 2013;</p> <p>(d)Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, in 2013;</p> <p>(e)Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, in 2012;</p> <p>(f)Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, in 2009.</p> <p>5.The Committee welcomes the State party s efforts to improve its institutional and policy framework aimed at accelerating the elimination of discrimination against women and promoting gender equality, such as the:</p> <p>(a)Establishment of a financial services banking company for women in 2013, intended to advance the economic empowerment of women;</p> <p>(b)Creation of a national mission for empowerment of women in 2010 to address women s issues in a coordinated manner at the central and state levels;</p> <p>(c)Introduction of the Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana maternity benefit scheme in 2010.</p> <p>6.The Committee welcomes the fact that, in the period since the consideration of the previous reports, the State party has ratified or acceded to the following international instruments:</p> <p>(a)Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in 2007;</p> <p>(b)United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime; the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children; and the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, in 2011.</p> <h3>C.Principal areas of concern and recommendations</h3> <h3>Parliament</h3> <p style="font-weight:bold;">7. The Committee stresses the crucial role of the legislative power in ensuring the full implementation of the Convention (see the statement by the Committee on its relationship with parliamentarians, adopted at the forty-fifth session, in 2010). It invites Parliament to take the necessary steps regarding the implementation of the present concluding observations between now and the next reporting period under the Convention.</p> <h3>Equality and non-discrimination</h3> <p>8.The Committee notes that article 15 of the Constitution guarantees equal protection under the law for women and men and prohibits discrimination on the ground of sex. The Committee is concerned, however, at the absence of a comprehensive anti-discrimination law addressing all aspects of direct and indirect discrimination against women and all the forms of intersectional discrimination, as explicitly listed in paragraph 18 of the Committee s general recommendation No. 28 on the core obligations of States parties under article 2 of the Convention.</p> <p style="font-weight:bold;">9. The Committee recommends that the State party:</p> <p style="font-weight:bold;">(a) Adopt comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation that prohibits discrimination on all grounds referred to in general recommendation No. 28;</p> <p style="font-weight:bold;">(b) Protect women from multiple or intersectional forms of discrimination and other grounds referred to in general recommendation No. 28;</p> <p style="font-weight:bold;">(c) Include a comprehensive definition of discrimination against women, in accordance with articles 1 and 2 of the Convention and the principle of equality between women and men.</p> <h3>Violence against women</h3> <p>10.The Committee notes the State party s efforts to enact a legal framework to prevent and respond to violence against women, including women from the marginalized castes and communities, such as Dalit and Adivasi women, and the establishment in 2013 of the Justice Verma Committee on Amendments to Criminal Law to review existing normative gaps. The Committee is concerned, however, about the:</p> <p>(a)Stark increase in violent crimes against women, especially rape and abduction, and the high number of cases of rape reported by the National Crime Records Bureau in 2012, indicating an increase by 902.1 per cent since 1971, and continuing impunity for such acts;</p> <p>(b)Retention in the Penal Code of an exemption from punishment when a rape is committed by the victim s husband if the wife is above 15 years of age;</p> <p>(c)Escalation of caste-based violence, including rape, against women and girls and the downplaying by key State officials of the grave criminal nature of sexual violence against women and girls;</p> <p>(d)Poor implementation of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and the impunity of perpetrators of serious crimes against women;</p> <p>(e)High number of dowry-related deaths since 2008;</p> <p>(f)Persistence of so-called  honour crimes perpetrated by family members against women and girls;</p> <p>(g)Declining girl child sex ratio from 962 per 1,000 in 1981 to 914 per 1,000 in 2011;</p> <p>(h)Criminalization of same-sex relationships, as referred to in the ruling of the Supreme Court (<span style="font-style:italic;">Suresh Kumar Koushal and an other v. NAZ Foundation, 2013</span>);</p> <p>(i)Increasing number of acid attacks against women since 2002, the underreporting of such crimes notwithstanding.</p> <p style="font-weight:bold;">11. The Committee urges the State party:</p> <p style="font-weight:bold;">(a) To implement the recommendations of the Justice Verma Committee regarding violence against women;</p> <p style="font-weight:bold;">(b) To promptly enact the Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill and to ensure that it provides for a comprehensive system of reparations for victims and for gender-sensitive, victim-centred procedural and evidentiary rules;</p> <p style="font-weight:bold;">(c) To amend the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, ensuring that marital rape is defined as a criminal offence, as requested by the Committee in its previous concluding observations ( CEDAW/C/IND/CO/3 , para. 23), expanding the scope of protection of the law to cover all prohibited grounds of discrimination and defining gang rape as constituting an aggravating factor meriting a more severe punishment;</p> <p style="font-weight:bold;">(d) To enact specific legislation to introduce heavier sentences for perpetrators of acid attacks, to regulate the sale and distribution of acid substances and to conduct large-scale campaigns to raise public awareness of the criminal nature of such attacks;</p> <p style="font-weight:bold;">(e) To strengthen the efficiency of the police, to ensure that police officers fulfil their duty to protect women and girls against violence and are held accountable, to adopt standard procedures for the police in each state on gender-sensitive investigations and treatment of victims and of witnesses and to ensure that first information reports are duly filed;</p> <p style="font-weight:bold;">(f) To establish, without delay, one-stop crisis centres providing women and girls who are victims of violence and rape with free and immediate access to medical attention, psychological counselling, legal aid, shelters and other support services;</p> <p style="font-weight:bold;">(g) To provide systematic training on women  s rights to all law enforcement personnel, medical staff and judicial officials;</p> <p style="font-weight:bold;">(h) To put in place an effective system to monitor and evaluate the implementation, effectiveness and impact of legisla tion to combat sexual violence;</p> <p>(i)<span style="font-weight:bold;">To make efforts to eliminate any criminalization of same-sex relations by studying the possibility, as accepted by the State party during its universal periodic review (see A/HRC/21/10/Add.1 ), and to take note of the ruling of the Supreme Court (</span><span style="font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;">Suresh Kumar Koushal and another v. NAZ Foundation</span><span style="font-weight:bold;">, 2013) in this regard;</span></p> <p style="font-weight:bold;">(j) To take urgent measures to adopt a national plan of action for improving the girl child sex ratio;</p> <p style="font-weight:bold;">(k) To allocate sufficient resources for the immediate enforcement of legislation on violence against women and for the establishment of special courts, complaints procedures and support services envisaged under that legislation in a time-bound manner.</p> <h3>Violence against women in border areas and conflict zones</h3> <p>12.The Committee is deeply concerned about the reported high level of violence, including rape and other forms of sexual violence, enforced disappearance, killings and acts of torture and ill-treatment, against women in conflict-affected regions (Kashmir, the north-east, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh). It is particularly concerned about the:</p> <p>(a)Provisions of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act requiring prior authorization by the Government to prosecute a member of the security forces and the reportedly high risk of reprisals against women who complain about the conduct of the security forces;</p> <p>(b)Significant number of displaced women and girls, in particular in the north-east, including as a result of sporadic communal violence, their precarious living conditions and exposure to serious human rights violations and the lack of gender-sensitive interventions at all stages of the displacement cycle;</p> <p>(c)Continued marginalization and poverty of the women and girls who survived the Gujarat riots and are living in the relief colonies and their precarious living conditions with limited access to education, health care, employment and security and poor infrastructure in terms of sanitation, water, transportation and housing;</p> <p>(d)Lack of centres providing medical, psychological, legal and socioeconomic support to women and girls who are victims of sexual violence in conflict-affected areas;</p> <p>(e)Limited regulation of the arms trade and the proliferation of small arms and light weapons and their impact on the security of women;</p> <p>(f)Restrictions imposed on women human rights defenders, in particular those operating in conflict areas, including restrictions on international funding and the surveillance under which they are placed;</p> <p>(g)Absence of women in peace negotiations in the north-eastern states.</p> <p style="font-weight:bold;">13. The Commit tee calls upon the State party:</p> <p style="font-weight:bold;">(a) To, in accordance with the recommendations of the Justice Verma Committee, promptly review the continued application of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act and related legal protocols and to enforce special powers protocols in conflict areas and assess the appropriateness of their application in those areas;</p> <p style="font-weight:bold;">(b) To amend and/or repeal the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act so that sexual violence against women perpetrated by members of the armed forces or uniformed personnel is brought under the purview of ordinary criminal law and, pending such amendment or repeal, to remove the requirement for government permission to prosecute members of the armed force