Women in crisis: violence against women during armed conflict situation-experience from north-east India

The India’s north-east has witnessed active internal armed conflict for decades and several ‘special security’ laws, particularly the Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA), have breaded into the culture of impunity. Women are often portrayed as passive victims during armed conflict situations. Stereotypical essentializing women as victims and men as perpetrators of violence deny each their agency and voice as actors in the process. Sexual violence in armed conflict situation is mostly unreported though widespread. The culture of impunity and social notion of women as the bearer of the honour of the family and society results in culture of silence over the crimes of sexual violence committed during armed conflict situations. It is seen that in the larger frame work of addressing various issues of the conflict, women’s concern take a backseat. Consequently, their needs and issues get buried within larger scheme of consideration. Conflict situations puts additional strain on women who get twice as marginalized as well as vulnerable to attacks from the aggressive opposition as women are most often symbolize the honour of the family. Legal procedural aspects together with the social notion of ‘honour’ have denied women justice for sexual violence. The paper attempts to explore the various dimensions of violations and discriminations suffered by north-east women in armed conflict situations, by using the growing toolkit of international instruments to protect and advance women’s human rights. The paper also highlights India’s continuing and resounding failure to progressively realize the key women’s human rights and to respect women’s dignity in armed conflict situations.