The Reality of Domestic Violence Law in India: Gaps Between Law and Practice

India has one of the most comprehensive domestic violence laws in the world – the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (PWDVA), 2005. It recognizes physical, emotional, sexual, verbal, and economic abuse. It provides for protection orders, residence rights, monetary relief, and the appointment of protection officers. On paper, it’s progressive and survivor-centric. In practice, however, the story is very different. Millions of women in India continue to face domestic violence, and the vast majority never access the protections this law promises. The gap between legislation and lived reality is wide – shaped by institutional delays, patriarchal attitudes within enforcement agencies, deep-rooted cultural norms, and a chronic lack of infrastructure. Understanding this gap is the first step toward closing it.

Challenges in enforcing domestic violence laws 🔗

The PWDVA was designed to deliver fast, accessible justice. The Act allows multiple reliefs to be sought in a single application, and proceedings are meant to be disposed of within 60 days. But in reality, the enforcement machinery falls short at nearly every level.

Judicial delays and overburdened courts 🔗

One of the most persistent problems is the delay in legal proceedings. Prolonged court timelines often deter victims from pursuing legal action, resulting in a lack of justice and accountability. Family courts and magistrate courts across India are overburdened with cases, and domestic violence matters routinely take months – sometimes years – to reach resolution. For a woman living in an abusive household, these delays are not just procedural inconveniences. They can be a matter of physical safety. When interim orders take weeks to process, the window of protection closes before it opens.

The conviction rate under the PWDVA was approximately 18% according to the 2022 National Crime Records Bureau report, indicating that only a small fraction of registered cases result in conviction. This low rate sends a discouraging message to survivors considering legal action.

Patriarchal bias in law enforcement 🔗

Police stations are often the first point of contact for domestic violence survivors, yet the response they receive is frequently inadequate. Many police officers lack a comprehensive understanding of the PWDVA’s provisions, leading to misapplication of the law. For example, breaches of protection orders under Section 31 are often incorrectly registered under Section 498A of the IPC (now Section 86 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita), which criminalizes cruelty by a husband or his relatives, rather than being treated under the PWDVA’s own provisions. This misclassification has serious consequences – survivors are denied timely access to protections like residence orders and maintenance.

This problem stems from insufficient awareness and training among officials, compounded by the persistent belief that domestic violence is a “private family matter.” When law enforcement views abuse as a household dispute rather than a legal violation, it creates a systemic reluctance to act. Women are frequently told to “go home and adjust” or to involve family elders rather than the courts.

The protection officer problem 🔗

The PWDVA established the role of protection officers (POs) – officials responsible for helping survivors file applications, access shelter, and connect with medical and legal services. In theory, POs are the backbone of the Act’s implementation. In practice, they are stretched thin and poorly supported.

In many states, Prohibition Officers have been given “additional charge” as protection officers. They are overburdened and sometimes lack the skills required for the task. POs also face a lack of infrastructure – including separate rooms to receive women, transportation, and computers – and the low salaries offered have made it difficult to retain qualified and trained staff.

In May 2025, the Supreme Court took note of this problem. In We The Women of India v. Union of India, the Court directed all states and Union Territories to designate protection officers in every district within six weeks and to officially notify shelter homes at both the district and taluka levels within ten weeks. The case highlighted the PWDVA’s uneven implementation across the country, with many states failing to even file status reports when asked.

The role of cultural and social norms 🔗

Legal provisions alone cannot eliminate domestic violence. The decision to seek justice does not happen in a vacuum – it is shaped by cultural expectations, family pressure, economic dependence, and social stigma. For many Indian women, these factors make reporting abuse almost as daunting as the abuse itself.

Stigma around reporting and help-seeking 🔗

India’s National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), conducted between 2019 and 2021, paints a striking picture. About 32% of ever-married women in India reported experiencing physical, sexual, or emotional violence by their current or former husband. Yet the majority of these women never sought any kind of help.

According to NFHS-4 data, approximately 86% of women who experienced domestic violence did not seek help, and about 77% did not even tell anyone about the incident. Among the roughly 14% who did seek help, the vast majority turned to immediate family rather than formal agencies like police or social services.

Why? The reasons are deeply embedded in India’s social fabric. In India, roughly 30% of married women between 18 and 49 face domestic violence, and close to 87% of them do not seek any help or intervention. Fear of retaliation, economic dependence on the abuser, lack of awareness about legal rights, and the belief that abuse is a “normal” part of marriage all play a role.

Domestic violence as a “family matter” 🔗

Perhaps the most powerful barrier is the widespread perception that domestic violence is a private issue – something to be settled within the family. Deep-rooted patriarchal mindsets normalize domestic violence as a private family matter, and social stigma linked to divorce or separation discourages women from seeking help.

This perception is not held only by families. It extends to police officers, medical professionals, and even judicial officers who may minimize the severity of abuse or pressure women toward reconciliation rather than protection. Police personnel are often either unaware of the provisions under the PWDVA or reluctant to intervene in what they perceive as “private” family matters, thereby failing to offer timely help.

Economic dependence and the fear of leaving 🔗

Financial autonomy is one of the strongest predictors of whether a woman will seek help. Since men are the primary earners in many families and women largely depend upon their husbands for any economic needs and support, domestic violence leaves women economically vulnerable. Leaving an abusive home often means losing not just a relationship but also shelter, financial support, and social standing.

The PWDVA does include provisions for monetary relief and the right to residence in a shared household. However, enforcing these provisions requires navigating the same delayed and sometimes hostile system described above. For a woman without independent income or education, the legal process itself can feel like an insurmountable barrier.

Intersecting vulnerabilities 🔗

Domestic violence does not affect all women equally. According to NFHS-5 data, approximately 37.3% of ever-married Scheduled Caste (SC) women reported experiencing intimate partner violence, compared to 24.4% among General category women. Factors like household wealth, the husband’s alcohol consumption, controlling behaviour, and witnessing parental violence together accounted for about 90% of this gap.

Women in rural areas, women with lower levels of education, and women from marginalized communities face compounded barriers – fewer resources, greater stigma, and reduced access to legal services. Physical violence is more prevalent among women in rural areas (31%) compared to urban areas (24%). Any meaningful reform must account for these intersecting vulnerabilities.

The path forward: structural reforms needed 🔗

Twenty years after the PWDVA was enacted, the conversation has shifted from whether India has good laws to whether those laws actually work on the ground. Closing the gap between legislation and practice requires reforms at multiple levels – from police stations to courtrooms to communities.

Sensitization training for law enforcement and judiciary 🔗

The single most frequently recommended reform is comprehensive training for police officers, magistrates, protection officers, and medical professionals. Incorporating Section 31 into police standard operating procedures would provide clear guidelines and ensure consistency in its use when protection orders are violated.

Training must go beyond legal literacy. It needs to include gender sensitization and trauma-informed care so that officials understand the dynamics of abuse – why women stay, why they recant, and why delayed reporting does not equal a false complaint. Training for protection officers is inconsistent and largely absent in many regions, and without proper orientation on gender sensitivity and legal procedures, the system fails to provide empathetic responses to survivors.

Law enforcement requires training for changing male-oriented legal interpretations and attitudes, along with regular education using media such as television, radio, and street theatre for various other target groups.

Strengthening the protection officer system 🔗

Protection officers must be dedicated, full-time appointments – not additional duties piled onto already overburdened government employees. They need proper infrastructure, adequate salaries, and clear accountability mechanisms.

Organizing periodic public hearings, such as jan sunwais, can serve as effective platforms where survivors, nonprofits, protection officers, police, judiciary, and government departments come together to identify and address systemic failures. Creating a digital, real-time system to track complaints, relief orders, enforcement timelines, and protection officer responsiveness would also help ensure accountability and identify bottlenecks early.

Expanding access to shelter and support services 🔗

Many women’s shelters and support services are underfunded and overwhelmed, limiting access to essential support for victims. The Supreme Court’s 2025 directions in the We The Women case – requiring states to notify shelter homes at both district and taluka levels and to empanel service providers – are a step in the right direction. But judicial orders need to be followed by budgetary commitments.

Support services must also extend beyond legal aid. Survivors need access to counselling, healthcare, temporary housing, and economic rehabilitation programmes. Comprehensive survivor support should treat domestic violence recovery as a long-term process, not a one-time legal event.

A bottom-up approach to legal reform 🔗

Top-down legislative action is necessary but insufficient. Real change requires a bottom-up approach that engages communities directly. Interventions aimed at empowering women must engage with couples as units and operate at the community level, addressing issues of equal job opportunities and gender-specific roles.

Community-based awareness campaigns – conducted through local organizations, self-help groups, health workers, and schools – are critical for shifting the norms that sustain domestic violence. Promoting women’s education, economic empowerment, and community engagement are essential to dismantling patriarchal mindsets that treat violence within the home as acceptable.

The Indian government has introduced schemes to prioritize girls’ education and incentivize families to delay marriage through cash transfers, recognizing the role of secondary schooling in preventing and protecting women from intimate partner violence. Scaling these programmes and integrating them with domestic violence awareness efforts would multiply their impact.

Improving data collection and monitoring 🔗

Better data leads to better policy. Getting a true picture of the magnitude of intimate partner violence is difficult because domestic violence data relies either on police reporting or health surveys, both of which significantly undercount the problem. India needs a more robust, multi-source data system that captures unreported cases, tracks service delivery, and monitors the performance of protection officers and courts.

The NCRB’s conviction rate data, combined with state-level implementation reviews, should be used to hold governments accountable and direct resources to the districts and populations where enforcement gaps are most severe.

Law as a starting point, not a destination 🔗

The PWDVA was a landmark achievement when it was enacted in 2005. It acknowledged domestic violence as a violation of human rights. It gave survivors civil remedies – protection orders, residence rights, monetary relief – that criminal law alone could not provide. But after two decades, the practical reality reveals a wide gap between legislative intent and ground-level execution, with women still struggling to access protection, relief, and justice due to a range of structural, systemic, and socio-cultural challenges.

The law exists. The infrastructure around it – the trained officers, the funded shelters, the sensitized police stations, the responsive courts – does not yet exist at the scale required. And beyond infrastructure, the cultural shift that makes domestic violence truly unacceptable in every home, police station, and courtroom is still a work in progress.

Progress is not absent. The Supreme Court’s continued monitoring, growing NGO networks like SNEHA in Mumbai that assist survivors directly, and increasing public discourse around gender-based violence are all positive signs. But the pace of change must match the urgency of the problem.

What do you think? Should India’s approach to domestic violence reform focus primarily on strengthening institutional capacity (more protection officers, faster courts, better-funded shelters), or on shifting the cultural norms that prevent women from seeking help in the first place? Can one succeed without the other?

References

1. https://www.indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/15436/1/protection_of_women_from_domestic_violence_act%2C_2005.pdf
2. https://www.scobserver.in/journal/supreme-court-directs-implementation-of-domestic-violence-act/
3. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9756932/
4. https://www.eco-business.com/opinion/indias-intimate-partner-violence-demands-an-all-in-response/
5. https://idronline.org/article/advocacy-government/how-indias-domestic-violence-act-can-deliver-justice/