Governance Feminism and India's Rape Law Reform of 2013

<strong>CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF LAW AND GOVERNANCE Jawaharlal Nehru University</strong> SEMINAR SERIES <strong>PRABHA KOTISWARAN&nbsp;</strong> Reader in Law and Social Justice, Kings College London on <strong>Governance Feminism and India's Rape Law Reform of 2013</strong> In recent years, the Indian Parliament has adopted a number of woman-friendly laws including the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, and most recently, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 (CLA). Feminists have been key to the passage of these laws. Through an examination of the 2013 rape law reforms, I ask if we discern the emergence of Indian GF. By mapping Indian feminists' efforts to amend rape law from 1979 onwards and their points of access to the state, I argue that Indian feminism has entered a governance mode. In describing the emergence of Indian GF however, I retain a dispassionate normative stance towards it instead assessing the likely distributive effects of the new rape law with a view to contributing to the self-reflexive ethos of the Indian women's movement, including in relation to its increased influence within the corridors of state power. <strong>7 October, 2016</strong> <strong>ABOUT THE SPEAKER:&nbsp;</strong>Dr Prabha Kotiswaran is Reader in Law &amp; Social Justice at King's College London; she previously taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. She received her undergraduate law degree in India from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore and an LLM and SJD from Harvard Law School. Dr Kotiswaran's main areas of research include criminal law, transnational criminal law, sociology of law, postcolonial theory and feminist legal theory. Her 2011 book Dangerous Sex, Invisible Labor: Sex Work and the Law in India (Princeton) won the 2012 SLSA-Hart Prize for Early Career Academics. Dr Kotiswaran has also edited an anthology on Sex Work (Women Unlimited) and special issues of the Journal of Law and Society and the Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly on an economic sociology of law (with Diamond Ashiagbor and Amanda Perry-Kessaris). She is currently engaged in a collaborative project with Janet Halley, Rachel Rebouché and Hila Shamir which critically assesses feminist successes in several arenas of domestic and international law reform. Books resulting from this work include Governance Feminism: An Introduction and a co-edited volume Governance Feminism: A Handbook (forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press). Her edited volume on Revisiting the Law and Governance of Trafficking, Forced Labor and Modern Slavery is forthcoming from Cambridge