Knowledge of laws about crime against women in Haryana: A sociological analysis

Pages: 106-108
Subhash Chander, Vinod Kumari, and Rashmi Tyagi (Department of Sociology, CCSHAU, Hisar, Haryana)

Crime against women has been a bane of India’s development efforts. With arcane customs like sex being a taboo in India, Sati, and Dowry, and the overall lower status of women further exacerbates these crimes. The study was conducted on 200 rural women in Kurukshetra district of Haryana state. Data were collected from 12 villages with well structured interview schedule as per objectives of the study. It was found from the field of the study that maximum number of the respondents (43.0%) had low level of knowledge about laws related to crime against women followed by medium level of knowledge (31.0%) and high (26.0%). More than one-third of the respondents (38.0%) had maximum knowledge about Rape, Section 376 IPC followed by Kidnapping and Abduction, Sec. 359-369 (35.5%) and Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 (35.0%). Factors like age, caste, education, occupation, mass media exposure and socio-economic status of the respondents were found significantly associated with level of knowledge about laws related to crime against women. It was also suggested that Efforts are needed to make rural women more aware about different laws related to crime against women and knowledge should be imparted to them through trainings.