WOMEN’S ACCESS TO JUSTICE: UNDERSTANDING THE BARRIERS

Abstract

Violence against women has been increasing globally, putting aninterrogation mark on the implementation mechanism of the governmental policies, both nationally and internationally. The National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) reports that almost every woman has faced violence of different nature, since the age of 15. The ever-increasing statistics relating to violence against women has resulted in legislating/framing various new policies like sensitising the prosecution system, harsher punishments to the offenders, etc. for the elimination of such crimes but they are without much success. Inspite of all the efforts, many of the victims of such crimes do not report due to the dread of social stigma and dearth of confidence upon the justice delivery mechanism. The failure of laws in controlling the crime rate and protecting the women from such crimes raise a doubt regarding the presence of challenges in the judicial process that prevent the victims from having access to the criminal justice system. Unless the issues which prevent the victims of such crimes from having access to justice system, the violence against women cannot be eliminated from the society. Thus, this paper aims to investigate various issues/challenges that threat/prevent the women from approaching the criminal justice system and seeking justice.