Gender Parity, Violence against women and home battery of wifes still common

						Written by Peky Samal
Bhutanese laws are some of the best laws when it comes to protecting the human right in general and women and children in particular. But its application is still questionalbe looking at the incresing number of crimes commited against women and children.  The issue of gender parity, violence against women and home battery cases are still prominent in the Bhutanese society particularly in the remote parts of the country.   Bhutan also signed the Convention on the rights of the Women and Children (CEDAW) in 1980 and also signatory to many international conventions on the human rights.  Here is a story that I found  something to prove as  well as to understand the situation in our country on such issues.  (P1) A 26-year-old woman was beaten and her genitalia pierced with a needle in a shocking case of assault by her husband in Bikhar, Trashigang. According to a complaint lodged by the victim, Duptho Wangmo, with the Royal Bhutan Police in Trashigang on July 23, the husband also beat her with a curry cooker wire, slapped her, and pulled her hair.  On August 14, her ex-husband (they are now divorced), Sonam Dorji, was convicted to six months in prison for assault under section 158 and 159 of the Penal Code.  He paid Duptho alimony of Nu 21,000 plus a compensation of Nu 10,000. In addition, Sonam Dorji is required to pay child support of Nu 1,200 each month for their two children, aged 5 years and 7 years, until they are both 9 years old.  He also paid Nu 15,000 bail and has been released from prison. The 35-year-old husband who is a painter told BT that he had returned from a work-related trip in Thimphu on the night of July 13. His father-in-law who was alone at home told him Duptho had gone to watch television. He went to the site where laborers were constructing a new school building as they had a television set at that camp. When the door was opened, he saw Duptho and their younger child under a bed. Suspecting infidelity, he dragged her outside. When he asked the child what they had been doing at the labour camp, he said they were “sleeping.” Out of anger and frustration, he pierced her genitalia with a needle. According to Duptho Wangmo, when she heard someone banging the door, she hid under the bed thinking that it was the owner of the house. But it was her husband. At home that night, he called her a “prostitute” and told her that she needed to be taught a lesson. Asked to choose between a needle and a knife for the punishment, she chose the former and resigned herself to her painful fate since she “had no better option.”  The next morning she went to the BHU where the health assistant referred her to Trashigang hospital. Dupthu was examined at the hospital twice. During the first examination on July 14, she had sustained multiple facial lacerations and abrasions and bruises on the body. She underwent treatment till July 19. On the second examination on July 21, she complained of prick wounds around her genitalia and she had sustained two new bruises on her face. Trashigang drangpon, Duba Dukpa, said that while cases of domestic violence were common, such an “extreme” case was the first he had heard of so far. “Maybe this is just the tip of an iceberg,” he said, “since many such cases go unreported.” Regarding the verdict, he said that the court had come to a “balanced judgment” considering the victim’s financial insecurity. “If the husband had been sentenced to a longer prison term, he would not have been able to pay the compensation, which means she and the children would have suffered,” Drangpon Duba Dukpa said.(P2)

  Note: (P1) to (P2) was retrieved from http://www.bhutantimes.bt/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1563&Itemid=1  on 14.09.2009 from Bhutan Times website.

As a legal student, now the question in my mind is Is there a lack of enough rules in the Bhutanese society to track down such problems? Is it because of lack of awareness on such issues among these people? What are the possible solutions that could address such issue in short term as well as long term? Does the government's manifesto of "Equity and Justice" being really implemented? and Are we really on the track of the Gross National Happiness?