Sexual Offences In India

Tripaksha LitigationSeptember 7, 20232 Comments

Sexual offence may be defined as a form of human sexual behaviour that is crime. Someone who commits one is said to be a sex offender. Some sex crimes are crimes of violence that involve sex. Others are violations of social taboos, such as Incest, indecent exposure or exhibitionism. There is much variation among the countries and cultures as to what is considered a crime or not, and in what ways or to what extent crimes are punished.

FORMS OF SEXUAL OFFENCES

It is possible to classify sexual offences in four main categories. First is direct offence, which is most commonly emphasized, examples of which are rape, molestation, forced prostitution, female genital mutilations, etc. Second is indirect offence, which covers harmful, sometimes deadly situations, or actions which, though due to human intervention, do not necessarily involve a direct relationship between the victims and the institutions or the arranged marriages, where the woman is not allowed to make a choice regarding the marriage partner. Third is repressive offence, which relates to three groups of fundamental tights-civil rights, political rights and social rights. Repressive violence is used to suppress political or class movements, for e.g., rape or sexual abuse targeting towards low caste women, mass rapes during international and internal armed conflicts. Fourth is alienating violence, which deprives the woman of her higher rights, such as right to emotional, cultural or intellectual growth. Examples are marital rape, prescribing dress codes to regulate female sexuality; etc

The list of sexual offences in India is as follows:

Rape. [Section 375,376(1)]
Custodial rape [section 376(2)]
Marital rape (section 376A)
Intercourse not amounting to rape by public servant with women in his custom (section 3768)
Intercourse not amounting to rape by superintendent of jail, remand home (section 376C)
Intercourse not amounting to rape by any member of the managing staff of a hospital (section 376D) g) Outraging the modesty of women.( section 509)
Assault or criminal force to women with intent to outrage her modesty (section354)
Obscenity (sections 292-294)
Marriage ceremony fraudulently gone through without lawful marriage. (Section 493)
Bigamy. (Section 494)
Adultery (section 497)
Enticing or taking away or detaining with criminal intent a married woman (section 498).
Selling minor for the purpose of prostitution. (Section 372)
Buying minor for the purpose of prostitution. (Section 373)
Procuration of minor girl under the age of 18. (Section 366A)
Kidnapping or abducting in order to subject persons to grievous hurt, slavery or unnatural lust of any person. (Section 367)
Importation of girls up to 21 years of age. (Sec. 366-B IPC)
Unnatural offence. (Section 377){Now Legalised}
An attempt, to commit any of the aforesaid offence (section 511)