Thursday, July 5, 2018

Rapes in India: Will the situation ever get any better?

Rapes in India are a very common phenomenon, as dark as it might sound. Almost 80% of women been sexually abused in some form or the other at least once in their lifetime and almost 27% of the times the culprit is a relative. With marital rapes still legal and other rape laws not so stringent, India’s approach in dealing with this issue is a very dull one.

Today, a 12-year-old girl who was kidnapped last month was allegedly raped 3 time by six people in Muzzaffarnagar, Bihar. The victim along with her grandmother started a protest in front of the district magistrate’s office accusing the police officers of not lodging an FIR against the culprits. The girl was abducted in a van by the accused on June 26 from here when she was going to Kukra village in the district. 

This is not the first time our country has witnessed such a heinous crime against a girl child and it won’t be the last. From the infamous Delhi rape case to Asifa rape and murder case, the list is endless. In selective cases people unite to show their support to the victims in the form of candle-marches and protest etc. and the government takes strict actions against the culprit in such cases while the other goes unnoticed. Very often the police is reluctant to even file an FIR and makes the victim uncomfortable by asking unnecessary question to an already traumatised individual.

The factual data says that more than 90% of rape cases go unreported in India in order to save the girl’s reputation because “a girl is responsible for her own security. She should have dressed properly. She was asking for it”, is what they say. In a patriarchal society like India where men are born with a sense of entitlement it’s nothing shocking that they won’t think twice before exerting their dominance over the other gender. It’s the victim who loses her “modesty” while there is no stigma attached to the perpetrator. Until those in power are unwilling to bring about a change, we can’t expect much improvement in this social problem. Just as Nirbhaya and other infamous rape victims were convicted, we need to extend this to the smallest hamlet in India. Women will be safer, if the system punished the guilty, without fear or favour of powerful local interests. However, as long as the guilty walk around with their heads held high and their chests puffed up with pride, and the victims cower in their houses in fear and shame, nothing will change.



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