Source: NDTV

New Delhi - Oct. 26: The Domestic Violence Act comes into effect from Thursday.

If a man commits any kind of violence or even insults his wife, he can land in jail with a fine up to Rs 20,000.

The Act covers women, be they wives, live-in partners, sisters, mothers, mothers-in-law or any other woman relation.

The new law protects them against:

Physical violence

For example: Beating, slapping, hitting, biting, kicking, punching, pushing, shoving or causing bodily pain or injury in any other manner.

Sexual violence, including against children

Forced sexual intercourse

Forces you to look at pornography or any other obscene pictures or material

Any act of sexual nature to abuse, humiliate or degrade you, or which is otherwise violative of your dignity or any other unwelcome conduct of sexual nature

Child sexual abuse

Verbal and emotional violence

Insults

Name calling

Accusations on your character and conduct etc

Insults for not having a male child

Insults for not bringing dowry etc

Preventing you or a child in your custody from attending school, college or any other educational institution

Preventing you from taking up a job, forcing you to leave your job

Preventing you or a child in your custody from leaving the house

Preventing you from meeting any person in the normal course of events

Forcing you to get married when you don't want to marry

Preventing you from marrying a person of your own choice

Forcing you to marry a particular person of his/their own choice

Threat to commit suicide

Any other verbal or emotional abuse

Economic violence

Not providing you money for maintaining you or your children

Not providing food, clothes, medicines etc for you or your children

Stopping you from carrying on your employment or disturbing you in carrying on your employment

Not allowing you to take up an employment or taking away your income from your salary, wages etc

Forcing you out of the house you live in

Stopping you from accessing or using any part of the house

Not allowing use of clothes, articles or things of general household use

Not paying rent if staying in a rented accommodation
 
 

'Diwali gift'

"It's my Diwali gift to all you women out there" - this is how Minister for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhary described the Domestic Violence Act.

The minister is also in touch with the Home Ministry to sensitise the police force to such complaints being made in the future.

Right to residence

NDTV spoke to a cross-section of women in the Capital. Some welcomed the law as a step in the right direction but there were others who felt that it would take more than a law to change perceptions about domestic violence.

It's common knowledge that domestic violence defies any stereotypes, and goes beyond the barriers of age and class.

NDTV met a 55-year-old from a well-to-do Delhi family, who has been married for 30 years.  She has been beaten for nearly 20 years and yet wants to retain her right to stay in her marital home as she has nowhere else to go.

The victim has been fighting the case for over two years and is still waiting for justice. She feels that women should have a right to residence. The victim, whose anonymity has been kept intact, has two children.