La riforma legislativa in materia di violenza sessuale in India: profili giuridici e sociologici

The brutal gang rape occurred in Delhi in 2012 shed light on the problem of violence against women in India, gender discrimination and traditional prejudices. As the existing legislation had proved to be ineffective, obsolete and shallow, the Indian Government set up a Committee in charge of submitting proposals of amendment to the Indian Penal Code, the code of criminal procedure and the Indian Evidence Act. The Verma Committee, named after its President’s surname, issued a long, well-structured report in which it tackled the problem of rape and other forms of violence of a sexual nature under a legislative and sociological point of view. The findings of the college formed the starting point of the subsequent Amendment Act issued in 2013. This essay intends to analyze the key points of the document, giving special attention to the constitutional bases underlined in the first part of the report. Moreover, it compares the amendment suggestions put forward by the Committee to the solutions lastly adopted by the legislator in 2013. In this regard, the essay underlines the shortcomings of the amending piece of legislation, also in the light of the sociological analysis of the situation of women in India, which constitutes the last part of this work