ABSTRACT
India professes respect for women and concern for children. Her constitution and laws guarantee gender equality and protection to woman and children against abuse. In reality, innumerable women and children are exploited. e latest published police statistics (for the year 2001), on the national level, show that every hour one woman is sexually harassed, four women are molested, six women su er cruelty by husbands and/or their relatives, two are raped, and a woman is killed in a dowry death (National Crime Records Bureau 2003a). Although the country’s population grew 9 percent during the period 1995-2001, crime against women, including dowry deaths, torture of wives, rape, and sexual harassment, rose 24.25 percent (National Crime Records Bureau 2003b). ere is also a large volume of tra cking in women and girls.
