By Haroon Irshad
ISLAMABAD: On November 12, reports spreads across Delhi regarding about a young woman’s strangulation and subsequent dismemberment by her live-in partner, who later threw bits of her body across the city. Earlier on in August, in Jharkhand province a stalker killed a 19-year-old woman by being burnt in her bed. The latter incident was met by protests.
A Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai researcher Nishi Mitra believes the killings are occurring due to their gender. Mitra has spent years researching on India’s annual crime data in a understand the phenomena of femicide in the country.
In most cases, such killings are accounted for as regular homicides and not in a way that an incidence of femicide can be deciphered.
According to Mitra, it’s an issue which cannot be ascertained as the lack of data.
True meaning of femicide not known
Mitra used the word “femicide” while she was working on a research paper on the topic in 2016. At that the word’s true meaning was not known neither in India nor world over.
Mitra added that criminal justice system needs to understand the concept of femicide so this crime become one which society can see. Additionally, she stated that factors which are complex and interlinked aids such violence become not visible and part of social customs.
In March 2022, the United Nations (UN) set up a rule-based standardized guide record killing of women and girls which are related to their gender. Such crimes are committed by unknow people, intimate partners and members of the family.
