India: Gender-Based Violence and Accessibility of Prenatal Health Care

Women’s rights, in terms of access to prenatal care and preventing gender-based violence are very controversial issues in India.  India has had many problems in the past with honor killings and other violence that has been perpetrated against women.  The staunch inequality towards women in this country is not only affecting women’s human right to feel safe but it is affecting the next generation of children who are born in conditions where the mothers

have little to no access to prenatal care.

There is a widespread perception within and outside of India that the country has a “women problem.”  The question of why violence against women is so widespread and particularly horrific in India is a matter of considerable debate.  Another question that is being addressed right now in light of the present debate is what actions to take to prevent and discipline gender-based violence and provide better access to women’s health care.

One of the court cases that was pending long after the victim was declared dead involved a 23-year old woman who was brutally raped by a gang of men on a public bus in New Delhi.  The victim died as a result of the injuries she had sustained during the vicious attack.  Thirteen days after she was hospitalized in the intensive care unit she died.  It was not until after her deaths that four of the six men involved in her sexual assault were put to death for their heinous crimes.  This type of brutal violence perpetrated against both women and girls in India is not uncommon.  One of the main obstacles that India faces in terms of changing legal policies to include gender-based violence is the fact that India has deeply rooted systemic problems that target and annihilate more than 50 million women a year.

Women who live in India are threatened often with multiple forms of violence for violating social norms including burning, acid attacks, brutal beatings and rape (Prasad 2).  Over the past 40 years the number of reported rape cases in India has increased by 900 percent (Prasad 5).  The rates of young girls who are being trafficked inside and outside of India have also increased tenfold over the last several years.  Violence against women is not only perpetrated by strangers, but often times the violence that women endure is caused by agents of the state, their family members or their spouse (Prasad 5).  The underlying problem that exacerbates rape culture in India is the deeply ingrained attitudes that men have about women and girls (Hackett 12).  Activists both in India and surrounding areas are working tirelessly to end the gender-based violence against women.  Rather than working to overthrow a particular oppressor, activists in India are working to “dismantle a deeply held set of beliefs and values held by men and often times by women” (Hackett 14).

Various features if Indian culture foster violence against women.  India’s religiosity and ingrained ideas about the “honor of women” make it extremely difficult for a paradigm shift to take place in India.  This shift can only take place if political leaders and other important Indian figures are addressing the importance of gender equality and defining what constitutes violence against women and that this type of aggressive behavior will no longer be tolerated.  Women and girls in India are raised to be obedient.  This is one of the qualities that determine whether or not a woman is marriageable.  In India, if women or girls deviate from the widely accepted social norm they are bringing shame not only upon themselves, but also upon their families, their spouse and the community in which they live (Nanda 10).  The communities and family members often respond to shame by stigmatizing or punishing the woman and often times in order to exercise social control the woman will be violently assaulted (Simon-Kumar 53).  Culturally speaking, women in India are generally expected to put up with violence from their family or their spouse (Simon-Kumar 51).  

Not surprisingly, in a 2011 International Men’s Gender Equality Survey one in four men self-reported having committed gender-based violence at some point in their lives.  This is alarming and frankly disturbing.  The deeply rooted social structure of India need to be abolished to make way for new policies that no longer condone gender-based violence and no longer punish the victim but rather punish the perpetrators of these heinous acts.

Access to prenatal health care from women is limited in India despite efforts to provide programs that have been created to help women gain access to these types of health services.   The use of prenatal health care among Indians is still patterned on socioeconomic status. There are enormous inequalities in terms of the utilization of prenatal health care in India especially among poor mothers (Nanda 7).  An analysis of socioeconomic background and the utilization of prenatal care services suggested that there are growing inequalities in utilization among the individuals in the different socioeconomic groups (Nanda 7).

According to the National Rural Health Mission, which is supposed to fund maternal health incentives throughout India, the funds from this organization are being misused (Jaiswal 345).  The government in India is slow to respond to this pressing issue.  “The government in India must respond with an expense report to prevent further ham to women’s maternal health as a result of their mismanagement of funds and use these funds to help put this program back on course so that it can better serve the needs of women” (Jaiswal 344).  There have been many court cases that have been backed by The Center for Reproductive Rights against the state of Bihar.  The cases involving women’s inadequate access to prenatal care arguing that by misappropriating funds the way that the government currently is, the government must be held accountable for the preventable maternal deaths that have resulted from a lack of funding (Jaiswal 348). 

Bihar is plagued with one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world. In Bihar the infant mortality rate is about three hundred out of every one thousand births (Seager 41).  India created the National Rural Health Mission in 2005 to help combat the problem of infant mortality but as has been revealed through statistical analysis over the last several years the numbers are remaining the same (Jaiswal 349).  Bihar, India continues to fail to provide pregnant women with access to health care and other necessary resources (Jaiswal 345).  Another problem that pregnant women of Bihar are facing is a shortage of hospital staff and infrastructure that would help to ensure that women in this part of India experience safe childbirths (Jaiswal 349).  

India continues to have shockingly high levels of maternal mortality even though the country has had significant economic growth and has had impressive advancements in various fields.  The maternal mortality rates in India are sixteen times higher than those of Russia and ten times higher than the maternal mortality rates in China.  India contributes to the largest number of births each year (roughly 27 million) and accounts for 20 percent of the world’s maternal deaths (Nanda 13).  Inadequate maternal health care services in combination with poor organization, huge rural-urban divides, social-economic constraints and cultural constraints demand that there be major changes to programs that already exist to assist women (Nanda 6).

India is progressing in terms of technological and economic advances but it seems as though equal treatment of women and access to women’s health care is low on the countries priority list.  Luckily for India, there are countless activists both inside and outside India who are continuing to work tirelessly to help ensure that women are granted access to medical care while they are pregnant and working to end gender-based violence against women.  The process is a slow one but there are many groups of committed people who are dedicating their time and resources to bettering the lives of Indian women.

Jaiswal, Sreeja.  2012.  Commercial Surrogacy in India:  An Ethical              

        Assessment of Existing Legal Scenario from the Perspective of 

        Women’s Autonomy and Reproductive Rights. Los Angeles, CA: 

        Sage Publications.

Hackett, Michelle.  2003.  Domestic Violence Against Women: Statistical 

        Analysis of Crimes Across India. Albany, NY: Associated Press.

Nanda, Priya.  2005.  Moving Towards The ‘Centre’: Reproductive 

        Health and Rights in Tanzania and Kerala, India.  Chicago, Illinois: 

         ProQuest.

Prasad, Shally.  1999.  Medicolegal Response to Violence Against 

        Women in India. New York, NY: Sage Publications.

 Seager, Joni.  2009.  The Penguin Atlas of Women of the World.  New 

        York, NY: Penguin Group.

Simon-Kumar, Rachel.  2008.  Neo-Liberal Development and 

        Reproductive Health in India:  The Making of the Personal and the 

        Political.  Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.