South Asia is one of the regions where cruelty against women is broad based. India is one of the countries notorious for violence against women.

The new penal law enacted by India recently protects the women from such violence. This piece of legislation is an ideal example to other countries in the region.

In 1983, India made changes in the Indian Penal code and made it an offense to cause violence against married women either by her husband or by bridegroom’s relatives.

The recent enactment in India has made provisions to save women from violence at homes and abuses. These provisions also provide relief to women who are victims of violence. It also protects women against abuse sexually or economically. In fact, it covers all types of violence against women.

This enactment also protects women from demanding dowry. It has given wider powers to courts to impose heavy penalties and imprisonment to the offenders.

In India, a married woman is either burnt to death or killed every six hours or forced to commit suicide. There was violence committed against women every 3seconds last year alone. There were 155,533 acts of violence against women out of them, 68, 810, were related to violence at home. Most of them were committed due to dowry problems. In this background, this legislation is very beneficial to India.

It’s considered a salutary move by Women’s Rights activists for it benefits all women married or otherwise, divorcees, mothers and widows.

An English translation of the Editorial in Thinakkural , a Tamil daily, based in Colombo

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