Data from the NCRB’s ‘Crime in India’ reports indicates that the number of reported crimes against women increased from 3.37 lakh in 2014 to 4.45 lakh in 2022, marking an increase of over 30%. The Crime Rate (crimes per lakh women) also increased from 56.3 in 2014 to 66.4 by 2022.
The alleged Rape and Murder of a Doctor in RG Hospital in Kolkata has once again brought to the fore the issue of women’s safety in India. While the brutal and horrific incident shook the conscience of the nation, as noted by the Supreme Court (SC), it also put the focus on numerous such events against women in the past, such as the Nirbhaya incident in Delhi, Disha incident in Hyderabad, among many others that have taken place since 2010. Though many such events of abuse, crime and violence against women continue to be reported regularly, oftentimes, these incidents get under-reported or unreported.
According to a 2018 survey report by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, based on the opinion of 193 United Nations Member States, India was named as the world’s most dangerous country for women. Taking suo-motu cognizance of the Kolkata case, the SC highlighted numerous issues relating to the safety of women in the medical sector and noted as under:
“They are portents of a systemic failure to protect doctors, nurses and para medical staff in the confines of hospitals. With few or no protective systems to ensure their safety, medical professionals have become vulnerable to violence. With the involvement of systemic issues for healthcare across the nation, this court has had to intervene.
Women are at particular risk of sexual and non-sexual violence in these settings. Due to ingrained patriarchal attitudes and biases, relatives of patients are more likely to challenge women medical professionals. In addition to this, female medical professionals also face different forms of sexual violence at the workplace by colleagues, seniors and persons in authority.”
Against this backdrop, in this story, we look at the trend of crimes against women in India, with an analysis of States/Union Territories (UTs), and major metropolitan cities.
Methodology and Notes
- The data for the story is sourced from the National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) annual ‘Crime in India’ reports which has a separate section on ‘Crimes against Women’. The analysis in the story is limited to data presented in the same reports.
- The NCRB compiles and publishes annual crime data as reported by individual states. Therefore, it does not take responsibility for the accuracy of this data. Additionally, the NCRB employs the ‘Principal Offence Rule’ when recording crimes. This rule means that if multiple offences are recorded in a single FIR, only the most severe offence among them is counted as a single crime. Consequently, the other offences are not separately counted and recorded in the statistics.
For the above reasons, the number of crimes reported by NCRB may not represent the actual number of crimes committed against Women in India.
Between 2014 to 2022, reported Crimes against Women increased by 31%
The NCRB records crimes committed against women under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Special and Local Laws (SLL) such as the Protection of Women Domestic Violence Act, Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, etc. As per this data, the total number of crimes against women was 3,37,922 in 2014. By 2022, this figure had risen to 4,45,526, reflecting a significant increase of over 31% in less than a decade. Even when compared to the total number of crimes per lakh women population, the crimes against women increased from 56.3 in 2014 to 66.4 by 2022.
The only years during this period that saw a decrease in the number of crimes compared to the previous year were 2015, with 3,27,394 crimes (down from 3,37,922 in 2014), and the COVID-19 affected year of 2020, with 3,71,503 crimes (down from 4,05,861 in 2019). Apart from these two years, the number of crimes against women consistently increased each year during this period.
7 states feature among Top 10 States in Crimes Rates against Women in each year between 2014 & 2022
From 2014 to 2022, 16 States/UTs (13 states and 3 UTs – Considering Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli as one UT) are among the top ten in the number of crimes against women per lakh women population. Among these, 7 States/UTs — Assam, Delhi, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, and Telangana — have been in the top ten every year during this period, while Andhra Pradesh and Andaman and Nicobar Islands have appeared in the top ten for 5 out of the 9 years.
Further, as far as the top 3 states across years are concerned, Delhi consistently ranked in the top three for all 9 years, followed by Assam for 8 years, and Telangana for 4 years. Odisha and Haryana each appeared twice, while Rajasthan and Lakshadweep featured once. Notably, despite Delhi and Assam ranking 20th and 18th respectively in terms of female population, they are consistently among the highest in crimes against women. While specific reasons for these states being on top cannot be ascertained, better reporting in certain states cannot be ruled out.
4 states feature among the bottom 10 States in Crimes Rates against Women in each year between 2014 & 2022
From 2014 to 2022, 15 States/UTs (12 states and 3 UTs) ranked among the bottom ten in terms of crime rate against women. 4 out of these, namely Tamil Nadu (T.N), Puducherry, Nagaland, and Manipur, appeared bottom ten every year during this period. Notably, 4 out of the total 12 states featured across the years from 2014 to 2022 were North-Eastern States, namely Nagaland, Meghalaya, Manipur and Mizoram.
Nagaland consistently held the lowest crime rate against women from 2014 to 2022. Puducherry ranked among the bottom three states for five years, while Tamil Nadu did so three times. The states of Bihar, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Gujarat have featured multiple times. Like better reporting in the case of the top 10 states in terms of crime rate against women, underreporting of crimes cannot be ruled out in the case of certain states in the bottom ten.
The standout among these bottom 10 States/UTs in crimes against women is the state of T.N. Despite being the seventh most populous state in terms of women, it consistently ranked among the 10 states with the lowest crime rates against women. Notably, the state stood as the highest in India in terms of number of women Police Stations (PS) each year from 2013 to 2022, with its women police representation being higher than the national average.
Crimes against Women in Metropolitans have increased by 17%
The NCRB also publishes yearly crimes against women data in the 19 metropolitan cities of India. As of this date, the number of crimes against women in these cities increased from 40,839 in 2017 to 48,755 in 2022, showing a 17% increase. Notably, none of the metropolitan cities reported a decrease in crimes against women during this period.
However, when compared by crime rates per lakh women population, though the overall crime rate increased slightly from 75.5 to 75.7 in these cities, 8 cities have shown a decrease in crimes, while 10 cities have shown an increase, excluding Delhi.
In 2017, the top five cities with the highest crime rates against women per lakh women were Lucknow (178), Indore (152), Jaipur (129), Kanpur (127), and Ghaziabad (117). By 2022, the top five cities were Patna (93), Kozhikode (92), Coimbatore (91), Ahmedabad (91), and Kochi (90).
