Violence Against Women

Lord Hussain Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Hussain (LD)]

I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, for raising this important issue. We often hear about violence and rape against women from many parts of the world, and we all stand united in condemning those acts. However, we very rarely discuss such issues taking place in many countries that are more friendly to the United Kingdom, such as India. Recently some cases in the capital and other areas have been reported widely in the press, but the case of gang rape in the Indian capital has remained the focus for almost all the print and electronic media in the country. This has been followed by violent and angry protests at India Gate in the heart of New Delhi. Not only the residents of Delhi but also the whole of India has condemned these crimes. Living their own life of peace, far from turbulent Kashmir, the young generation of the city have rarely witnessed such protests, yet they arose in anger to protest against this brutal incident. People all over India have condemned the brutality of the crime and demanded a harsh punishment for the culprits. Cries of justice for the victim have echoed in many quarters.

However, this has also exposed the duality of attitude of the majority of Indians. If an incident of gang rape against a medical student on a moving bus in the capital is a matter of grief and sorrow for India, provoking it to demand justice, what about Kashmir, where many such cases of rape against innocent girls involving forces have come to the fore? These have been overlooked by the majority of Indians and the rest of the world. Why has not the rest of India demanded justice for these girls? The residents of Kashmir, which is claimed by India as an integral part and is still considered the most militarised part of the world, where the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act gives extraordinary powers to the military forces and where protests against alleged human rights violations take place on a daily basis, have cried themselves hoarse demanding justice in a number of rape cases against innocent daughters of the state.

The major rape case in the history of Kashmir and indeed the whole of India is the Kunan Poshpora mass rape incident. On 23 February 1991, Kunan Poshpora, a village in the Kupwara district of north Kashmir, witnessed incidents of the alleged mass rape of 20 women by army troops in one night. The incident drew the attention of national and international media. However, this was soon forgotten and the womenfolk of the village landed in unending troubles. Women who deserved the respect and honour of society were not secure any more from the cruel face of the armed forces. A number of other cases of rape and enforced disappearances have come to the fore in the past three decades. Another case that shook the region was the 2009 Shopian rape and murder case, which resulted in protests that rocked the whole valley, with several families losing their loved ones in the agitation.

Shutdowns, curfews and protests, unimaginable for Indians, are not new to Kashmiris. Importantly, womenfolk have become the victims of sexual abuse in the state. Several decades have passed but Kashmir is still fighting to restore its internal peace by achieving justice for its loved ones, who have been subjected to enforced disappearances, and its womenfolk, who have been subjected to senseless violations of their dignity.

The root of the problem, as pointed out by many, is the existence of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, which grants special powers to the armed forces deployed in Kashmir. According to the law, the forces have the power to,

“enter and search without warrant any premises to make any such arrest as aforesaid or to recover any person believed to be wrongfully restrained … or any arms, ammunition or explosive substances”,

and seize it. Does this imply that in a crackdown, the forces can take away all the male members of a community and do whatever they wish with the womenfolk left behind? Kashmir has witnessed too many such incidents.

On 31 March 2012, a UN official asked India to revoke AFSPA, saying it had no place in a democracy such as India. Christof Heyns, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, visited the region and said:

“During my visit to Kashmir, AFSPA was described to me as ‘hated’ and ‘draconian’. It clearly violates international law. A number of UN treaty bodies have pronounced it to be in violation of international law as well”.

I will cut short my speech because I can see that my time is nearly up. A Kashmiri newspaper recently reported that the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, asked the Sri Lankan Prime Minister to ensure a “credible, transparent and independent” inquiry into alleged war crimes. Will the Foreign Secretary ask the Indian Government to ensure a credible, transparent and independent inquiry into the alleged gang rapes in Kashmir at the hands of the security forces, and to bring those responsible to justice?