India: Minimum action taken after Dalit girls gang raped by police officer

[fierytrini]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2642922/Two-teenage-sisters-14-15-hanging-mango-tree-gang-raped-Indian-village.html

India's history of subjecting Dalits (the lowest caste for Indians) to violence and oppression continues. In India, two teenaged sisters are brutally gang raped and one of the accused is a police officer. Sexual crimes against women are common and rampant and on few occasions do women report the incidents. When they do report it, women are ridiculed by their communities and families, it is a social stigma and most women drop the case. There are incidences where women are forced to marry the rapist!

In this report above, the villagers claim the police did very little to apprehend the suspects. If you notice the pictures from the link, the elderly men in the panchayat (village elders that make the laws in the village, only men) are seen talking to the police man who is sitting while the villager squats on the ground. to me, it shows how little has really changed despite India's legal sanction against "Untouchables" (Dalits). More things are always done by paper and face for votes than trying to solve the cause of India's trouble- its ruling class!

[fierytrini]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2645231/Teen-Indian-girls-raped-murdered-left-hanging-mango-tree-pictured.html


The case has been updated and the victims named. Three local brothers confessed to the crime. Two others are to be brought in. It is argued that the police refused to act because the girls were low caste.

[fierytrini]

[urlhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2646225/Indian-police-fire-water-cannon-anti-rape-protesters.html][/url]

And to add salt to the wound of women...

India hit with yet another rape horror story after victim is dumped in field with acid thrown in her face to prevent identification as police fire water cannon at protesters

The woman was gang raped, strangled and acid poured on her face in an attempt to prevent her from being identified.
Hundreds of cases or rapes go unreported as women are ashamed of the stigma attached as well as poorer families are given money by perpetrators and the state to avoid reporting. Also, many women are forced to marry the attacker in more rural villages. The main problem is that lower castes in India are still bearing the burden of caste rule.

[Kairi]

"India has a long history of tolerance of sexual violence, but the attack on the girls has caused outrage across the nation." (Excerpted from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2646225/Indian-police-fire-water-cannon-anti-rape-protesters.html)

What I'm trying to figure out is this - is it that the nature of sexual crimes against women have become more violent and also more prevalent in recent times or is it that the technology today allows for greater publicity of said cases when they occur in today's world of instant messaging and social media? 

I don't think that I can reconcile in my head that the sexual attacks on women (alleged to be increasing over the last few months) are exclusive to caste...to me they seem gender related, reflecting the hedgemony of a patriarchial system.  The reaction of authorities to reports of rape in these recent cases is what seems to be defined by the caste of the victim vs caste of the alleged perpetrator though I would not say that caste does not play a role in an individual's decision to exploit someone else.  However, the vicious nature of the attacks combined with the reticence of the authorities to take action imply a contempt for the individual autonomy a woman should or could have over her own body and the mores of the society seem to reflect that, ie - that a female is chattel, and has been morally and physically defiled somehow by any sexual activity outside of that which the society has prescribed.  The word "honour" gets bandied about subject to that ideology and justifies much of the stigmatisation that rape victims thereafter encounter.

Another perspective I found helpful is that of Sohaila Abdulali.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/opinion/after-being-raped-i-was-wounded-my-honor-wasnt.html?_r=0

[fierytrini]

True, with the advent of technology there can be greater coverage of crimes across the world.

I do believe that caste plays a great role in violence against women in India. Because India claims to have banned the caste system, crimes may well be not reported along those lines. However, this does not mean that there are serious crimes that go unreported in the lower castes, it is just that India pays blood money to victims to prevent them from talking.

As well as the culture's patriarchal control over women is just as important to how women are viewed and treated in this society. Politics and the Police in India are notorious for being contemptuous of treating rape cases. Police and the politics are also dominated by males which does influence how legislation is made and enacted.

[fierytrini]

Babulal Gaur the home minister responsible for law and order in the BJP-run central state of Madhya Pradesh said: 'This is a social crime which depends on men and women. Sometimes it's right, sometimes it's wrong.'
He added: 'Until there's a complaint, nothing can happen.'

In the recent election, Mulayam criticised legal changes that foresee the death penalty for gang rape, saying: 'Boys commit mistakes: Will they be hanged for rape?'
The BJP dismissed Gaur's comments as an expression of his personal views, and not the party's.


The father and uncle of one of the victims said they tried to report the crime to local police but had been turned away.
Three men have been arrested over the killings. Two policemen were held on suspicion of trying to cover up the crime.

Although a rape is reported in India every 21 minutes on average, law enforcement failures mean that such crimes - a symptom of pervasive sexual and caste oppression - are often not reported or properly investigated, human rights groups say.
More sex crimes have come to light in recent days.

A woman in a nearby district of Uttar Pradesh was gang-raped, forced to drink acid and strangled to death. Another was shot dead in northeast India while resisting attackers, media reports said.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said he was 'especially appalled' by the rape and murder of the two girls.
'We say no to the dismissive, destructive attitude of, 'Boys will be boys',' he said in a statement this week that made clear his contempt for the language used by Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2650553/Rape-Sometimes-RIGHT-Indian-state-minister-says-offence-crime-woman-reports-police-days-murderous-gang-rape-two-sisters.html#ixzz33rR8ieU1
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[Kairi]

I've been looking for articles on this issue.  Previously I'd thought it to be a mainly gender related issue but I've since discovered that the violence against women being publicized in cases like this seems to be centering around upper caste perpetrators attacking the vulnerable from lower caste communities.  Disturbingly, attacks seem to resemble hate crimes.


See here -  http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-27774908

[Kairi]

Social justice activists question silence over sexual violence against Dalit Women


Full article here - http://www.vancouverdesi.com/news/india/dalits-social-justice-activists-question-silence-over-sexual-violence-against-dalit-women/488559/

[fierytrini]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2664421/Pakistani-woman-20-gang-raped-killed-hanged-tree-say-police.html

A 20-year-old woman was gang-raped, killed and hanged from a tree in Pakistan in a case that bears a chilling resemblance to a double rape and murder that caused outrage in neighbouring India last month.
Pakistani police said Muzammil Bibi was attacked by three men in a field in the impoverished Layyah area of densely populated Punjab province.
Senior officer Sadaqat Ali Chohan said: 'This is the first time in my 22 years of service in the police that I have seen such a case, where a girl was raped in this way and found hanging from a tree.