QandAs: Legal

What is Genocide?

Answer:
Genocide is defined as the systematic

and well planned act of mass destruction or mass killing of an entire national, racial, political, religious or ethnic group either in the whole country or in any part of the country.

Genocide is a term which was coined by Raphael Lemkin and came into existence in the year 1948 during the Holocaust and declared as an International Crime by the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) which came into effect in January 1951.

The various acts which are considered as a part of Genocide are: -
(a) Killing members of the group either directly or actions which may cause death.
(b) Causing serious physical or mental harm through widespread torture, sexual violence, rape, etc.
(c) Deliberately inflicting conditions of life for destruction of a group like deprivation of basic means or services for the survival of life e.g. food, water, shelter, etc.
(d) Prevention of Birth by involuntary sterilization.
(e) Forceful transfer of children.
(f) Planning for Genocide is also a part of the crime.

Today more than 130 countries have signed Genocide Convention and more than 70 countries have made provision for the punishment of Genocide in their domestic criminal law.