January 17, 2021
Dear Friends, There have been a spate of sexual assaults on disabled girls/women in the recent period. As all of us know, much of this goes unreported. However, a more disturbing feature are the newer forms of brutality that are being inflicted also to maim the survivor to deny her access to the criminal justice system. Unfortunately, despite campaigns conducted by many of us, both individually and collectively, the National Crime Records Bureau refuses to maintain separate data on crimes against disabled girls/women. We have as part of this campaign drafted a letter to the Union Home Minister, under whose jurisdiction the NCRB falls, demanding that the NCRB include violence against women with disabilities as a separate category. This would go as a joint petition. Please do send in your endorsements, with your name, designation and the name of your organisation, state/city etc. Individual endorsements are also welcome but better if they are also accompanied by the name of the city etc. We will wait for the endorsements till January 20 before sending off the letter to the HM. Please do send in before that. Thanks and regards Muralidharan General Secretary National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled **** text of letter given below *Joint Letter to the Union Home Minister* *NCRB to Maintain Disaggregated Data on Violence on Disabled Women* *The Union Minister of Home Affairs* *Government of India* Dear Sir, We, the undersigned disability rights organisations, activists and individuals are dismayed by the fact that despite the large number of reported cases of sexual assaults on disabled girls/women, the National Crimes Record Bureau does not maintain disaggregated data on such violence, as a separate category. Many of us individually and collectively have been raising this issue with different ministries and agencies including but not restricted to the Ministry of Women & Child Development, Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, National Commission of Women etc. Unfortunately, we are yet to see any positive development towards its fructification. Permit us to point out that even the United Nations Committee monitoring the implementation of the United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities had in September 2019 in its concluding remarks, among others, recommended to Indian Government to: *Ensure that the National Crime Records Bureau collect data disaggregated by sex, age, place of residence, relationship with perpetrator and disability in cases of violence and exploitation, including gender-based violence against women and girls with disabilities, and violence inflicted by intimate partners.* Recently, the National Human Rights Commission in its Advisory on Rights of Persons with Disabilities in the context of Covid-19 also reaffirmed the importance of maintaining data on violence on disabled people. It had recommended that the: *National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) must include data on PwDs also.* The maintenance of such data, you will appreciate, will enable policy-makers in particular and other stakeholders in general to formulate strategies and mechanisms to respond to their particular needs, which can be disability specific, in facilitating access to the criminal justice system, among other things. May we point out that a 2014 report by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women, Rashida Manjoo, following her visit to India, underlined that a consistent lack of disaggregated data collection “renders the violence committed against women with disabilities invisible.” This issue becomes all the more urgent as we are witnessing a growing number of cases of sexual assaults on girls/women with disabilities. We observe that during the pandemic period also there has been no respite. On the contrary, we find that there has been an increase in their numbers and the ferocity and brutality inflicted on the victims/survivors has escalated. In many cases the perpetrators seek to maim the survivor with the intention of further impairing her capacity to get through an already inaccessible criminal justice system. This was blatantly evident in the recent case in Bihar’s Madhubani were an attempt was made to damage the eyes of a hearing and speech impaired girl after she was subjected to gang-rape. It defies logic as to why the NCRB which is mandated to function as a national repository of crime and criminal related data in the country does not maintain such data. Unfortunately, the NCRB, in response to a RTI query as late as December 2020, has sought to pass on the buck to the states under the specious plea that “police is a State Subject under the 7th Schedule of the Indian Constitution”. By that reasoning, NCRB should not be collating data for most of the crimes, as law and order is a state subject. We would therefore like to urge upon you to pass necessary orders to ensure that the NCRB maintains disaggregated data which includes, but is not restricted to, sex, age, place of residence, relationship with perpetrator and disability in cases of violence and exploitation, including gender-based violence against women and girls with disabilities, and violence inflicted by intimate partners. Signatories: 1. -- National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled (NPRD) 36, Pt. Ravishankar Shukla Lane New Delhi 110 001 Tel. 11-23387674; 9868768543 -- Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list.. 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