Looking for safe places for women? Look to India's northeast!
If you're wondering if there's any place safe for women anymore, India's northeast might surprise you. Apart from Assam, the rest of the Seven Sisters have clocked some of the lowest rates of crimes against women in the country since 2014. Of the six, only Tripura has logged a four-digit figure each year till 2016. Perspective: UP saw nearly 50,000 crimes in 2016.
Looking at how each state fared
Arunachal Pradesh presents a largely stable picture, with 351 (2014), 384 (2015) and 367 (2016) crimes against women respectively. Meghalaya (390, 337 and 372) shows similar trends. Manipur (337, 266 and 253) and Mizoram (258, 158 and 120) have seen sharp declines, in contrast to most other regions. Tripura (1,618, 1,267 and 1,013) has also seen a fall. Nagaland (68, 91 and 105) has recorded extremely low figures.
Assam's case stands out
Contrastingly, Assam stands out, marking a spot for itself among the 10 most dangerous states each year since 2014. That year, it registered 19,169 crimes against women, which increased to 23,365 in 2015, then touched 20,869 in 2016.
The northeast is a haven for women. In some ways
The northeast isn't perfect, it still has flaws. As of October'17, of the total 518 MLAs across the northeastern states, only 28 were women. But the sex ratio in most of these states is better than the national average of 940 (2011 census). Female foeticides/infanticides are rarely heard of. There's no concept of 'dowry' in the northeast either.
So does NCRB's data give a real picture?
However, there might be more than meets the eye in NCRB's crime rates. One important factor is lack of reporting. "Most women don't report violence. Also, most crimes against women are either domestic violence, or by armed personnel. No one reports these," said activist Rosemary Dzuvichu. "Also, incidents here aren't highlighted as much as in other parts of India," she added.
