A child is a child because it does not understand what is right and what is wrong for him. Their minds are vulnerable, give them candies and they become happy, scold them a little and they become sad, and the profit of this vulnerability is being used as an advantage by the predators. These predators not only play with their body but also soul and they make sure that they don’t even let them trust those people who actually love them.
Who are these predators? Someone outside our society? An alien enemy? Or what? These are the very same people who live among us. In our very own society.
Coming to the point which I would like to highlight through this paper is how the concept of marriage is being used to rape minor girls and how when they actually know that they have been raped the cover of consent is taken by the predator.
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With the birth of a girl child in a household, the father loves her, protects her, the mother makes sure she has all the empathy a woman must have, her sister makes sure she is happy and her brother makes sure she is strong. The hope and reality of marriage are been taught to the girl child from the very beginning of her life. She has to get married one day, she would also have her own children, her husband would love her. All such dreams are there in the mind of a young girl child. Young girls always play a game in which they run a household and also handle their career well. One big happy family. But what if all these turn into fake promises.
The predators in our society, who want to get their desires and lust fulfilled trap these innocent souls who are full of dreams and expectations and easy to lure. There are promises made, love and affection is shown and when the trap is set and the girl trusts the predator they make the move.
There are girls of ages between 10 -12 who are given hope of marriage then raped and then left. Some of them also become pregnant. Are their bodies fully developed to carry another soul? Are they capable of handling a child when they themselves are a child? The answer is NO! Most of them don’t survive this face, the doctors say that it is dangerous in both the cases no matter you have the child or abort it.
Many of them are made not to speak because the family thinks it is matter of shame and their own daughter was wrong that she loved someone or believed that she loved someone, trusted them and herself contributed to her rape. Isn’t it wrong and double standards of our society. One hand they say that they have vulnerable minds and on the other they assassinate her character.
After such pressure from our society only a few brave children confront their predators and fill a complaint against them. It is difficult to narrate a story of betrayal and broken trust and narrating them is living that trauma again.
When such cases go to the court, the defense council in front of the learned judge claim the defense of “CONSENT”.
What is consent? Just a mere yes? Or a yes for a purpose they truly believe in? Just a yes to love? Or a yes to exploit? A yes to ruin or a yes to damage and betrayal?
Consent is what an adult gives to another for everything they believe to be true and have a firm belief that they won’t be betrayed and in such cases, it is a consent with a belief that the other person loves her and will marry her, would never leave her side no matter what.
The defense council may claim that there was consent to have intercourse, but does that consent mean anything when it is given by a child?
To clear the air and tell the predators the reality this paper is being written. To clear all the misconceptions people have about our judiciary. Those learned judges know what is right and for the betterment of the society that is why in the case of Dilip Singh aka Dilip Kumar V. The State of Bihar, it was held that the consent given by a minor is not a consent.
The facts are as follows:
Dilip Kumar promised a 15 year girl to marry her and therefore had sexual intercourse with her, not once but many times. Soon she got pregnant and even then they had intercourse. When the girl said that now they should get married as she is pregnant. He refused to marry her and broke all relations with her.
When the case went for trial, the defense council took the advantage of the general exceptions laid down in Indian Penal Code from Section 76 to 106. the exception under which they claimed defense was of consent.
The court held that the consent was given under the misconception that he would marry her. To quote the judgement, “ if consent is given by the prosecutrix under a misconception of fact, it is vitiated. Accused committed sexual intercourse with the prosecutrix by giving false assurance that he would marry her, after she got pregnant, he refused to do so. From this it is evident that he never intended to marry her and procured her consent only for the reason of having sexual intercourse with her, which falls under rape.” therefore he was held liable.
Conclusion:
This was to clear the misconception among the people at large that if we say that there was consent in everything happened, still a child can file a petition and send you behind the bars. This is also for those parents who think their daughters are wrong. They are not wrong they are just innocent who can not differentiate between right and wrong. Support is very necessary from parents side in such cases as a child is already broken, she needs love and not hate.
This article is authored by Medha Shukla, student of BBA LL.B (Hons.) at Vivekananda Institute Of Professional Studies.
