NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in its annual report for 2024-25 has confirmed a steady rise in crimes against women in the country, with the data showing 3,71,503 incidents of crime in 2020, which rose to 4,28,278 in 2021 and 4,45,256 in 2022.
“The majority of cases under crimes against women were reported under ‘cruelty by husband or his relatives’ (31.4%) followed by ‘kidnapping and abduction of women’ (19.2%), ‘assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty’ (18.7%) and ‘rape’ (7.1%),” the report further observed.
The MHA, however, said the increasing trend is mostly because of higher reporting of such crimes due measures like making it mandatory of police to register FIRs, sensitisation of police personnel and increased awareness campaigns.
Noting that many victims of general category crimes like murder, robbery and cheating are women, the report said, “From 2020 to 2021 the crime against women increased by 15% and then 2021 to 2022 it increased by 4% and the proportion of IPC crimes against women were 12.5% in 2022.” It said the rate of total crimes against women was 66.4 in 2022 per one lakh of female population.
In cases of crimes against children, there has been steady increase between 2020 and 2022 with 1,28,531 such incidents in 2020, which increased to 1,49,404 in 2021 and 1,62,449, in 2022. “In percentage terms, major crimes against children during 2022 were kidnapping and abduction (45.7%) and cases under the POCSO Act (39%),” the report revealed.
Under the head ‘juveniles in conflict with law’, MHA said 37,780 minors were apprehended in 30,555 cases.