Other provisions related to dowry-related and domestic violence laws

Public Awareness and Trainings

• Laws should mandate public awareness campaigns and trainings for different sectors and groups. In particular, legislation should mandate training for religious, customary, community tribal leaders, state-registered preachers and religious officials on women’s human rights, dowry-related violence, domestic violence, and seek their commitment in denouncing violence against women. Legislation should mandate the training of all health professionals, including maternity, obstetrics, gynecology, reproductive health, and medical examiners on women’s human rights, dowry-related violence, domestic violence, and guidelines on how to identify, provide referrals, and sensitively and appropriately treat survivors/complainants of dowry-related violence. Legislation should mandate the training of teachers in primary, secondary and higher education schools to promote women’s human rights and denounce violence against women, including dowry-related violence and deaths. See: UN DAW Expert Group Meeting, Good Practices in Legislation on “Harmful Practices against Women” (2009), Sections 3.2.2, 3.2.3, 3.2.4. Laws should also sensitize the media and journalists on violence against women, including dowry-related violence and deaths. See: UN Handbook, Section 3.5.4.

• Legislation should mandate government support and funding for public awareness activities on violence against women, including dowry-related violence and deaths. The UN Handbook recommends general campaigns to educate the public about violence against women as discrimination and a violation of women’s human rights, as well as specific educational campaigns to increase public understanding of laws and the remedies regarding violence against women (Section 3.5.2).

• In addition to focusing on women’s human rights and dowry, public awareness and trainings should address women’s inheritance and property rights and women’s rights in marriage and at its dissolution.

Addressing Dowry-related Violence through Regulation and Registration of Dowry

• Drafters should provide regulations regarding dowry. Legislation should establish both a marriage registration system and a registration system for gifts made before, at anytime after the marriage from either party’s family to the bride, groom, both bride and groom, and their family members. Both parties should be required to document all gifts received and describe each gift, the value, the date made, the name of the giver, to whom the gift is made, each sign or thumbprint each of the lists, and file the lists with an official office or court authorized to accept these documents. Parties should append any additional gifts or dowry made and received to this record. Legislation should also provide a mechanism for parties to document dowry demands, whether explicit or implicit, and whether and how they were met.

• Rather than prohibit dowry, drafters should consider whether to enact legislation that draws upon the outcomes in the dowry prohibition laws. Where there is a finding of domestic violence, extortion, infliction of injury or fear of injury to oneself or a third party to exact dowry, title and ownership of dowry given to the husband or in-laws should shift to the woman victim. In these cases, the recipient of the dowry merely holds the dowry in trust for the woman until its eventual transfer to the woman within a specified time period. Under the Indian Penal Code, a person may be held guilty of criminal breach of trust if he “dishonestly misappropriates or converts to his own use that property, or dishonestly uses or disposes of that property in violation of any direction of law prescribing the mode in which such trust is to be discharged, or of any legal contract, express or implied…” (Article 405). An accessible dowry registration system and public outreach to facilitate its use would be imperative. Alternatively, drafters should provide for a civil compensation scheme for victims to seek redress where there is a finding of domestic violence, extortion, infliction of injury or fear of injury to oneself or a third party to exact dowry. In cases where the dowry has been sold, depreciated, or exhausted, a civil compensation scheme may be the more realistic option. Again, documentation through a registration system is an important measure for implementation.

Regulation of Acids and Other Harmful Substances

• Legislation should regulate the sale of any type of acid. See: UN DAW Expert Group Meeting, Good Practices in Legislation on “Harmful Practices against Women” (2009), Section 3.3.6.2. For example, Bangladesh’s Acid –Offences Prevention Act 2002 defines acid as “any substances, burner caustic and poisonous” (Article 2(b)). The act punishes inflicting hurt or death by acid, acid throwing and attempts to throw acid, and abetting any of these offenses by imprisonment and a fine (Articles 4-7). Article 9 states that fines garnered from this law are to be remitted to the “successor of the person died [in] consequence of the offence otherwise to the person being injured physically or mentally or to the successor if dead, after realizing it from the person convicted or from his assets or by realizing from the assets left at the time of his death.” The Bangladesh Parliament has also enacted the Acid Control Act (2002), which criminalizes the unlicensed production, import, transport, storage, sale, and use of acid and imposes a prison sentence of 3-10 years. Individuals in possession of the chemicals and equipment for the unlicensed production of acid are subject to the same penalty.