Caste Based Sexual Violence and State Impunity

For decades, Dalit women in India have suffered innumerable indignities and violence in many forms because of their location in specific marginalised social groups. In the recent years, there has been an increased reporting of caste-based sexual violence, and there is complete impunity displayed by the state duty-holders, especially the police and the medical personnel.
Things came to head with the infamous Hathras case, where the victim was deprived of timely medical aid and after her demise, her body was hurriedly cremated by the police without informing or including her family. Numerous unreported cases of rape against Dalit women and girls however remain mostly invisible, and victims-survivors struggle to access medical aid, counselling, justice and redressal.
This report is an outcome of a research carried out by Dalit women activists in 13 Indian states where they have been handling cases of caste-based sexual violence for several years. The report comes at a significant time when the country is reeling from the aftershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic losses induced by hurried lockdown measures imposed by the Government of India nationwide.

As phases of un-lockdown set in, we look back to see how the nature, pattern and forms of violence against Dalit women has only increased despite lockdown measures. The pandemic, in fact, has further deepened the crisis in Dalit women’s lives, with job losses and therefore loss of income. Poverty, landlessness and lack of economic assets only exacerbates their vulnerability and insecurity. As Dalit families strive to access better resources and services, educate themselves and seek to move out of poverty, there is a backlash from the dominant caste groups.
This report covers the states of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Kerala, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The 50 cases examined are based on incidents of sexual violence that took place over a span of seven years, between 2015 and 2021. Of these, 32 are from the last three years – between 2019 and 2021 – to ensure that recent cases have been analysed and to assess the impact of the pandemic on access to justice by Dalit women survivors of sexual violence. All the cases were purposively selected by Dalit Women Human Rights Defenders working in these 13 states.
The report is organised into specific themes, based on the patterns of violence perpetrated by men of dominant caste groups, the delays and systemic barriers in the justice system for redressal and the resultant challenges faced by victimssurvivors and their families, access to support services for victims-survivors, some major efforts of the Dalit women activists to enable the justice process and recommendations to the Central and state governments.