"The experience of violence and the silent acceptance of violence by women undermines attempts to empower an will continue to be a barrier to the attainment of demographic, health and development goals ."(National Family Health Survey 2, India, p. 79)

 In terms of  personal security, West Bengal is generally considered to be a comparatively safe state in the all-India context. In 2001, for example, the number of cognizable crimes per one lakh population in West Bengal (76.7 )  was less than half of the all India average (172.3), with only Meghalaya and Mizoram reporting a lower rate. [i] But here our chief concern is one crucial component of the total security scenario in any civilized society : violence against women.

Perhaps the most painful devaluation of women is the physical and psychological violence that stalks women's lives from cradle to grave . It  can scar the early life of a woman in the shape of child abuse, incest and sexual harassment ; it can threaten marriage and domestic life , sometimes culminating in murder or suicide, as so tragically evident in the rising number of such atrocities recorded in crime statistics.

For the first time a large body of national level and state level data related to domestic violence against women has been compiled by the second National Family Health Survey conducted during 1996-98. Some of its findings are summarized in Table V 1. According to the revelations of this very large all-India survey (addressed to ever-married women of child-bearing age), domestic violence appears to be 'democratic' - cutting across age, religion, community, rural-urban divide , even women's employment status. In West Bengal, 18 per cent of the respondents had experienced beatings and physical mistreatment (lower than the national average of 21 per cent) and in nine out of ten cases this violence  had been inflicted by the husband. However, incidence of this type of violence seems to fall appreciably with rise in the standard of living and with women's access to higher education. Illiterate women in West Bengal were almost nine times more likely to experience violence( about 27 per cent) as compared to women who had completed high school (about 3 per cent). These findings have obvious implications for the need to strengthen  women's basic capabilities.

     Regarding Violence against women