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Women’s safety and empowerment is an empty rhetoric in India.
While brutal crimes spark public outrage and political blame games, the daily violence faced by women goes unnoticed. The safety mechanisms and government schemes meant to protect them are equally overlooked.
Effective implementation of women’s safety schemes remains critical — but as The Reporters’ Collective found, the reality falls far short. This three-part investigation interrogates the failures of a system meant to protect women and uncovers government falsehoods and half-truths concealing these failures.
On its 78th Independence Day, mass protests erupted once again across India, this time over the horrific rape and murder of a doctor inside a hospital in Kolkata. Reports suggested foul play by the hospital administration, with allegations of a cover-up to quell the unrest.
But, it wasn’t just Kolkata. A simple search revealed several other shocking cases across the country — a 14-year-old Dalit girl’s gang-rape and murder in Muzaffarpur, Bihar; the rape and murder of a nurse in Uttarakhand; and a government official accused of raping a 10-year-old girl in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh.
Official data shows a steady rise in crimes against women, from 41.7 per lakh in 2012 to 66.4 in 2022. Rape cases increased from 24,923 in 2012 to 31,516 in 2022, while cases of cruelty by husbands and in-laws soared from 1,06,527 to 1,40,019.
Marginalised women, particularly from Dalit communities, are especially vulnerable, with 4,241 of the 31,516 rape cases registered in 2022 involving the rape of Dalit women by non-Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes perpetrators.
Women also face the highest rates of violence within their matrimonial homes, with the latest data showing that 1,44,593 women endured cruelty from their husbands or in-laws in 2022.
The Collective’s investigation does a reality check of government schemes – launched after the 2012 Nirbhaya case – meant as first steps toward a safer country for women.
[This investigation is partially supported by the Appan Menon Memorial Trust Award to The Reporters' Collective.]
*The woman in the photograph is a survivor of gender violence. The photo has been taken with her consent.
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