The Terror of Rape: Inside India’s Sexual Violence Epidemic

The recent rape of an eight-month-old baby girl in New Delhi has caused global outrage and demands for reform, as more details on India’s culture of sexual violence have come to light. While the infant’s 28-year-old cousin as been arrested, the majority of India’s sexual violence victims will never know justice.

Now hospitalised and on life support after the incident which occurred last Sunday, the infant is just one of tens of thousands of children sexually abused in India each year. In fact, the BBC  stated that India has the highest rate of child sexual abuse in the world, while Reuters deems India to be the worst place in the world to be a woman.

Most shockingly, The Hindustan Times reported that the perpetrators of only 25% of India’s rape cases were convicted in 2016. Appalling crime statistics from India’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) show that each day, 92 women are raped. Additionally, the rapes of children in 2016 had increased by 82% from the previous year.

So, where has India gone wrong?

‘Lack of accountability’

In an interview with Al Jazeera, the Chief of the Delhi Commission for Women, Swati Maliwal, detailed her frustration at India’s law enforcement and legal system. “All police stations in Delhi are currently functioning at half its sanctioned strength, we need to improve this. There is lack of accountability of the police. We need more forensic labs, many special courts to deal with child rapes,” she stated.

Maliwal revealed that some cases seem to drag on for years, with the victims never fully receiving justice. It’s clear that the implementation of the laws is well below par; rape and sexual assault appear to be so commonplace that people can simply switch the channel or have momentary shock before continuing with their lives.

‘Exaggerated’ rape culture?

In late 2016, India’s minister for women and child development, Maneka Gandhi, was reported to have said that, with regard to rape cases, India is among the lowest countries in the world. She further claimed that foreign countries, such as Sweden, aren’t as concerned with reporting on rape cases as India does; hence rape does not become “big news”.

Gandhi blames foreign media for exaggerating the rate of India’s sex crimes, thus making India less attractive to tourists.

However, there was no comment from Gandhi on the social stigma surrounding the victims of rape and sexual assault in India. Women are blamed for sporting revealing clothing to tempt attackers or, when they do eventually go to the authorities, are pressured to retract their statements. Gandhi also failed to mention that marital rape is not considered a crime in her country, or that women are deemed dirty or unsuitable for marriage after being assaulted.

Another fact which received no acknowledgement from Gandhi was a 2007 report into child abuse in India, which revealed that 53.22% of children involved in a particular government study had experienced some type of sexual abuse.

On the other end of the spectrum, Sweden has a vast definition of rape and charges the perpetrator separately for each incident. In India each incident is meshed together in one charge.

In 2012, Reuters stated that India was the worst country to be a woman, according to global experts. The global poll noted that “infanticide, child marriage, and slavery” make India the worst place to be a woman.

Co-author of Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, Nicholas Kristof, also commented on the poll. He stated that, “unless you have some special access to privilege, you have a very different future, depending on whether you have an extra X chromosome, or a Y chromosome”.

Such a comment can be corroborated by similar remarks made by political and economic analyst, Priya Virmani, who voiced her concerns on the attitude of the police in terms of acting on the complaints of victims. She stated that the police feel as if they can be selective in cases involving citizens of different castes; cases involving lower castes can often be made “invisible” for long periods of time.

She blames India’s “caste, gender bias and the entitlement culture” for the rising number of rape victims across the nation.

Asia, International Criminal Law, Woman International