More Men suffer Domestic Violence at Home than women.
Amend Domestic Violence Act of 2005 by making it Gender Neutral
ABOUT CRISP & OUR MISSION :
CRISP is a Bangalore-based NGO dedicated to the cause of Child Rights and Shared Parenting since 2008.We are a pro-family and pro-life organization; Our aims, objectives and goals are based on research findings & our mission is to promote family harmony in our society. We are a large group of people from all walks of life, like Software engineers, Doctors, Teachers, Businessmen, & Social workers etc., We have chapters all over the country including metros like Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Goa, Mysore, Punjab etc.
October of every year is dedicated as Domestic violence awareness month, our NGO CRISP is creating nationwide awareness about the problems faced by men with regard to matrimonial disputes. It is now well established that Family disputes and Domestic Violence is the number one killer for married men in India as 24% of suicides are directly attributed to such cases. Also the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), a govt of India undertaking, in its latest statistics have announced that 89,129 men have committed suicide in 2014 where as 42537 women have committed suicide (source https://ncrb.gov.in).
. Efforts by various government agencies either to stop married men committing suicide or make Domestic Violence Act gender neutral is non-existent. Men are treated worse than animals.There is not even a Men’s welfare commission to look into the problems faced by men in their day-to-day life. With a lack of proper redressal for to address issues pertaining to men, they are left with no choice but to endure with a living hell or commit suicide. Afterall a family consists of men, women, children , elders but giving protection only for women and Domestic violence Act is unconstitutional and inhuman afterall violence cannot be gender specific. Therefore we demand the act to be made open to all genders & ages.
Highlights of the present protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act
1.      Totally unconstitutional and violates basic human rights since Domestic Violence cannot be gender specific and one sided, our attitude to violence against men is out of date and not valid in the present social fabric.
2. A large proportion of men who sought help from various helplines are being told ” We only help Women”, whereas various research findings show that it is actually women who are more prone to initiate Domestic Violence.
3. Men who suffer from Domestic Violence are silently suffering harassment, they feel ashamed to discuss with others due to societal stigma. They are always under the threat of cases by their wives and remain in denial mode.
4.     This Act is  ANTI-CHILD, ANTI-FAMILY, ANTI-MEN and only wife centric & needs immediate amendment in interest of equity and justice as men are also subject to Domestic violence at home.
5. CHILDREN are increasingly living in single parenting homes, mostly with mothers and missing out Fathers’ love and affection due to restraining orders against fathers by the Domestic Violence courts. In many cases, the restraining orders are issued ex-parte, and the father and his extended family members are denied an opportunity to present their case. It takes years to set right this situation, by which time the Child is totally alienated from the natural father.
6. Elders/ Senior Citizens are harassed and constantly live in fear of false cases from their daughters- in-law.
7. Men find it very tough to come out of abusive relationships for fear of losing their children, and are also worried about false dowry case due to gender biased laws and suffer in silence.
OUR D E M A N D S
Amend the Domestic Violence Act to make it gender neutral and provide equal protection for Men, Women and Children under the act without any gender bias or presumption of innocence in favour of women.
Make all family cases pertaining to Dowry, Domestic Violence, Child custody & maintenance cases under one roof in the same court complex preferably with cctv facility & ensure speedy trial and conclusion.
Implement Law commission of India recommendation to make shared parenting mandatory. Government should take steps to pass the bill as soon as possible to prevent thousands of fathers from committing suicide.
Set up evening and week end family courts to reduce the pending cases in child custody matters & set up special guardian courts to address disputes regarding child custody, shared parenting and visitation rights.
Curb misuse of Domestic Violence Act and Courts and severely punish people who misuse the Act as a tool for extortion & also take action to prosecute against people who file false cases. As per NCRB data for 2014, the conviction rate for dowry related cases is 2% or lower.
Maintenance should be granted based on length of marriage and must be gender neutral & honourable courts should help in disposing off family related matters within 6 months. A system should be setup to automatically account for child maintenance expenses.
Make all family laws civil in nature, trials under the act should be strictly subject to the CPC and the Indian evidence act and stop suggesting terms like jail, bail etc… be removed from the text of Domestic Violence Act.
Stop counselling in police stations and police should not interfere in family disputes and pose threats to husband and his family that they will send them to jail if they don’t listen to the wife’s demands.
Government to appoint and get research report on the reasons for the family stress on trivial disputes which are exaggerated. They should be encouraged to reconcile rather than filing any fake criminal cases.
Honourable Supreme court to lay guidelines on what constitutes Domestic Violence to avoid prevailing confusion in various lower courts.
Prevent Husband suicides by opening free state sponsored helpline centres and appoint trained counsellors to give emotional support to harassed husbands. India too should adopt a national strategy to prevent suicide, as adopted by several countries.
Encourage family counselling by trained counsellors only & set up more mediation centre in every district of the state.
