Another Rape, Another Statistic
In yet another shameful incident, an MBA student in Noida was raped by 5 men, who waylaid her, while she was in a car, with a male friend. Delhi/NCR has of course become notorious for such crimes, but this incident again proves something that feminists have for long been crying themselves hoarse about - that, rapes are caused by rapists not by the behaviour of victims. This woman was inside her own car (or her friend’s), not taking public transport. She was outside a mall, not on some deserted stretch. She was with a friend - a male friend. Â She was out at 5 pm, not at some deserted hour at night. So, while many people try hard to find reasons why someone was raped (she was on her own, she was out at night, she went to the wrong part of town etc etc etc), clearly all that you need for a rape to occur is a few numbers of scum, regardless of what the victim was doing or wearing.Â
And oh, why do I call it a statistic? Because that’s what it’s likely to become, as the pathetic conviction rates for rape in India show.Â
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I used to love NCR, but now with all these news, I am not sure whether I hold the same feelings.
As you have pointed out, 5 pm, outside a mall, in a personal vehicle, and most importantly not alone. In spite of all this, if the government says its behavioural, we certainly need to ask Shiela Dixit to concentrate on people and not on the metro and the environment for now!
5 were held but 10 men did the rape.
I seriously believe they should be hanged.
Apu,
It’s pathetic that a woman is not safe even in broad daylight in what passes for a reasonably crowded area. I know people are stunned by terrorism now in India and getting shot at or bombed at by “real terrorists” but here we now have a situation where a woman has to live in constant terror for her safety all the time. And sadly, no one cares when incidents like this happen.
Aathira, the government of course doesn’t directly implicate the behaviour of women, but Sheila Diskhit’s comment when the journalist Sowmya was murdered, about her being “adventuous” only indicates what society feels - that the onus is on women to keep themselves safe; never mind that most women live with this fear anyways and have all kinds of self-censorship in place.
Reema - is that true? the news reports are a little confusing. It’s impossible for cops to patrol every street at every time, so yes, swift prosecution and severe punishment is prolly the only way to combat this.
Laksh - yes, its pathetic. The truth is that as long as such scum don’t fear and know that they can get away with anything, we will never be safe.
u know what its the same story everywhere… I think the difference now is that the people and the press in the NCR region is much aware and bold to report whereas the other parts lots of them go unreported
and as far as people saying that its the victim’s behavior, if they look in the case files they will realize that how wrong they are… rape cases exists of girls as young as 3 years and ladies as old as 80, tell me can anyone of them ask for it?
Monika - of course the reporting rate may be higher in metros, but even so, there seem to be more incidents in the NCR region. And yes, people are still stuck in a mindset where they want to first examine the victim’s behaviour…
awful awful
my blood boils- and then i do nothing about it :-((
a subject very close to my heart — yet infinitely painful. rapists move proudly in society .. and we do nothing about it ….can we girls do really nothing ?
Art, Cyan_sky - both of you have raised the question of what can we do about it? Perhaps in terms of securing more safety, not much - but, at an individual level, I always make it a point to disabuse people of any notion that any woman ‘asked for it’ by her behaviour. I am always amazed by how otherwise decent people still believe that the woman did something wrong (wrong place, wrong time etc etc) - and atleast we should try to rid society of this belief. For rapes to stop, we need a much more impressive rate of conviction and stronger punishments…