Sexual harassment is a type of harassment involving the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the unwelcome and inappropriate promises of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. Sexual harassment can be physical and/or a demand or request for sexual favors, making sexually colored remarks, showing pornography, and any other unwelcome physical, verbal, or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature. Sexual harassment includes a range of actions from verbal transgressions to sexual abuse or assault. Harassment can occur in many different social settings such as the workplace, the home, school, or religious institutions. Harassers or victims can be of any gender.
In India, eve teasing is a euphemism, primarily occurring in English, used for public sexual harassment or sexual assault of women by men. The name "Eve" alludes to the Bible's creation story concerning Adam and Eve. Considered a problem related to delinquency in male youth, it is a form of sexual aggression that ranges in severity from sexually suggestive remarks, brushing in public places and catcalls, to groping.
The status of women in India has been subject to many changes over the time of recorded India's history. Their position in society deteriorated early in India's ancient period, especially in the Indo-Aryan speaking regions, and their subordination continued to be reified well into India's early modern period.
Violence against women (VAW), also known as gender-based violence and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), is violent acts primarily or exclusively committed by men or boys against women or girls. Such violence is often considered a form of hate crime, committed against women or girls specifically because they are female, and can take many forms.
The men's rights movement in India is composed of various independent men's rights organisations in India. Proponents of the movement support the introduction of gender-neutral legislation and repeal of laws that are biased against men.
Crime in India has been recorded since the British Raj, with comprehensive statistics now compiled annually by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), under the Ministry of Home Affairs (India).
Gender inequality in India refers to health, education, economic and political inequalities between men and women in India. Various international gender inequality indices rank India differently on each of these factors, as well as on a composite basis, and these indices are controversial.
The anti-rape movement is a sociopolitical movement which is part of the movement seeking to combat violence against and the abuse of women.
Domestic violence in India includes any form of violence suffered by a person from a biological relative but typically is the violence suffered by a woman by male members of her family or relatives. Although Men also suffer Domestic violence, the law under IPC 498A specifically protects only women. Specifically only a woman can file a case of domestic violence. According to a National Family and Health Survey in 2005, total lifetime prevalence of domestic violence was 33.5% and 8.5% for sexual violence among women aged 15–49. A 2014 study in The Lancet reports that although the reported sexual violence rate in India is among the lowest in the world, the large population of India means that the violence affects 27.5 million women over their lifetimes. However, an opinion survey among experts carried out by the Thomson Reuters Foundation ranked India as the most dangerous country in the world for women.
Child sexual abuse laws in India have been enacted as part of the child protection policies of India. The Parliament of India passed the 'Protection of Children Against Sexual Offences Bill (POCSO), 2011' regarding child sexual abuse on 22 May 2012, making it an Act. A guideline was passed by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, India. The rules formulated by the government in accordance with the law had also been notified on the November 2012 and the law had become ready for implementation. There have been many calls for more stringent laws.
Rape is the fourth most common crime against women in India. According to the 2021 annual report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 31,677 rape cases were registered across the country, or an average of 86 cases daily, a rise from 2020 with 28,046 cases, while in 2019, 32,033 cases were registered. Of the total 31,677 rape cases, 28,147 of the rapes were committed by persons known to the victim. The share of victims who were minors or below 18 – the legal age of consent – stood at 10%.
The 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder, commonly known as the Nirbhaya case, involved a rape and fatal assault that occurred on 16 December 2012 in Munirka, a neighbourhood in South Delhi. The incident took place when Jyoti Singh, a 22-year-old physiotherapy intern, was beaten, gang-raped, and tortured in a private bus in which she was travelling with her male friend, Avnindra Pratap Pandey. There were six others in the bus, including the driver, all of whom raped the woman and beat her friend. She was rushed to Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi for treatment and transferred to Singapore eleven days after the assault, where she succumbed to her injuries two days later. The incident generated widespread national and international coverage and was widely condemned, both in India and abroad. Subsequently, public protests against the state and central governments for failing to provide adequate security for women took place in New Delhi, where thousands of protesters clashed with security forces. Similar protests took place in major cities throughout the country. Since Indian law does not allow the press to publish a rape victim's name, the victim was widely known as Nirbhaya, meaning "fearless", and her struggle and death became a symbol of women's resistance to rape around the world.
Violence against women in Tamil Nadu includes molestation, abduction, dowry-related violence, and domestic violence. The police recorded 1,130 cases during the first seven months in 2013, compared to 860 for the corresponding period in 2012. In Usilampatti Taluk, around 6,000 female children were killed in a span of 2 years during 1987–88, accounting to the single largest instance of recorded female infanticide.
Violence against women in India refers to physical or sexual violence committed against a woman, typically by a man. Common forms of violence against women in India include acts such as domestic abuse, sexual assault, and murder. There are several forms of violence against women, murder, female infanticide, sexual crimes, acid throwing, perpetuation.
The dowry system in India refers to the durable goods, cash, and real or movable property that the bride's family gives to the groom, his parents and his relatives as a condition of the marriage. Dowry is called "दहेज" in Hindi and as جہیز in Urdu.
#MeToo is a social movement and awareness campaign against sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and rape culture, in which people publicize their experiences of sexual abuse or sexual harassment. The phrase "Me Too" was initially used in this context on social media in 2006, on Myspace, by sexual assault survivor and activist Tarana Burke. The hashtag #MeToo was used starting in 2017 as a way to draw attention to the magnitude of the problem. "Me Too" empowers those who have been sexually assaulted through empathy, solidarity, and strength in numbers, by visibly demonstrating how many have experienced sexual assault and harassment, especially in the workplace.
Sexual harassment in the military is unwanted sexual behaviour experienced as threatening, offensive, or otherwise upsetting, which occurs in a military setting.
The Indian#MeToo movement began in late 2018 to manifest in areas of the Indian society including the government, the media, and the Bollywood film industry. In India, the Me Too movement is seen as either an independent outgrowth influenced by the international campaign against sexual harassment of women in the workplace, or an offshoot of the American "Me Too" social movement. Me Too began gaining prominence in India with the increasing popularity of the international movement, and later gathered sharp momentum in October 2018 in the entertainment industry of Bollywood, centered in Mumbai, when actress Tanushree Dutta accused Nana Patekar of sexual harassment. This led to many women in the news media, Indian films, and even within the government to speak out and bring allegations of sexual harassment against a number of perpetrators.
The #MeToo movementin Pakistan is modeled after the international #MeToo movement and began in late 2018 in Pakistani society. It has been used as a springboard to stimulate a more inclusive, organic movement, adapted to local settings, and has aimed to reach all sectors, including the lowest rungs of society.
The MeToo movement, an effort to publicize and criticize sexual abuse and harassment, was founded in 2006 by Tarana Burke, and spread virally on social media following the exposure of numerous sexual-abuse allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein in October 2017. Since then, the #MeToo hashtag has trended in at least 85 countries.
