Six men are in police custody and a seventh is being sought after gang raping a 29-year-old woman on a public bus. The driver and bus conductor are among those arrested.
“The number of reported rapes in India — a country where a cultural stigma keeps many victims from reporting the crime — has increased drastically, from 2,487 in 1971 to 24,206 in 2011, according to official figures.
Most women in India have stories of sexual harassment and abuse on public transportation or on the streets, said Seema Sirohi, of the Indian Council on Global Relations.”
You can access this original piece by pressing this link, which takes you to a CNN video and story.
An additional story, which can be accessed through this link, reports additionally of a gang rape and murder of a 32-year-old woman leaving a train.
“Since the Delhi attack, dozens of incidents of sexual violence to women which would not usually be reported are being covered in the Indian media. Newspapers also reported the case of a 16-year-old schoolgirl in Sonipat, Haryana, who was badly injured when she set light to herself in a suicide bid after being raped.
The Delhi rape in December has set off an fierce debate about attitudes to women in India, where a woman is raped every 20 minutes according to official statistics.”
Sexual violence and institutionalized discrimination against women is a growing global problem. In two prior posts, The Growth of Misogyny and the Erosion of Women’s Rights, and Fallout over Akin’s Statements Misses the Mark, I posted regarding this global trend, and noted that rape is on the rise throughout the world, considered, “the fastest growing crime in India.” We know this, we talk about it, and it persists. When are we going to take it seriously enough to stop it? What is it going to take?
Written by, Michelle Sicignano, LMSW, SJS Staff Writer
Our authors want to hear from you! Click to leave a comment
Related Posts
![By Official Navy Page from United States of America Leslie Paxton/U.S. Navy (A sexual assault awareness poster.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Flickr_-_Official_U.S._Navy_Imagery_-_A_sexual_assault_awareness_poster._%2811%29.jpg){kind=link}
Excellent piece-thank you for sharing Michelle! I agree that rape, prostitution, sexual slavery and the like are huge issues in developing countries and in some more modern countries. The government both on a national level, as well as a local level needs to step in more and condemn those that commit these crimes. The public needs to be very outspoken that this is wrong. Cultural attitudes need to change where girls and women speak up more without fear and boys and men are educated as to why it is wrong. There needs to be a shift.