‘Redefining Victimhood’: The Overlooked and Invisible Victims of India’s Domestic Violence Act

  • Samhita Banerjee and Raunak Bharadwaj
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  • Samhita Banerjee

    Ph.D. Scholar at Amity University of Kolkata, and an Assistant Professor of Law at L.J.D Law College affiliated with the University of Calcutta, India

  • Raunak Bharadwaj

    Practicing Advocate at Lucknow, and a former Assistant Professor of Law at University of, Kanpur, India

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Abstract

The legal architecture addressing domestic violence in India, particularly addressing the women in 2005 made a law which is inherently gender-specific, conceptualizing domestic abuse as mainly a MALE TO A FEMALE phenomenon. While this gender biased included sociological perspective gives us a reality which necessitated such gender protections, on a legal invisibility on groups other than women such as male, transgender, and non-binary victims. Let’s also not forget women as Perpetrators of crime associated under this. They have always been regarded as a victim, but what happens aftermath the domestic violence is also dangerous to think of as the trauma behaviour gives rise to a criminality which is born from the gender specific rules of the legal system of the country. Through a complete doctrinal analysis this paper focuses on the troubles of the present system and focuses on gender specific domestic violence completely ignoring that the word ‘domestic’ may include anybody from the sphere of household relationships, if interpreted widely. If compared to international practices, Domestic Abuse Act,2021 (UK) reconceptualizes domestic violence as not a gender specific crime anymore, but an abuse of power within intimation or familial relationships.

Keywords

  • gender-neutral domestic violence laws
  • Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act
  • 2005
  • male victims
  • LGBTQ+ rights
  • legal reform
  • female perpetrators

Type

Research Paper

Information

International Journal of Law Management and Humanities, Volume 8, Issue 5, Page 1380 - 1385

DOI: https://doij.org/10.10000/IJLMH.1110546

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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution -NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits remixing, adapting, and building upon the work for non-commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Copyright © IJLMH 2021