Rape, potential rapists and the vulnerable women
Rape, potential rapists and the vulnerable women
By
Sneha Utthasini (Sem I, 2023)
It is true that crime doesn’t really have gender and age.
The National Crime Records Burau survey data fetched from the Lokesabha shows
that crime against women has increased during last 5 years from 8.8% in year
2007 to 9.4% during the year 2011. Currently the survey also shows that in
every 16 minutes in some unknown place of India a girl is brutally raped
(https://loksabhadocs.nic.in/Refinput/New_Reference_Notes/English/Crimeagainstwomen.pdf)
. Fearing the social stigma attached to the incident of rape, molestation and
the like many people do not even protest against this terrible injustice they
face. A section of educated upwardly mobile people say, “women’s clothing
nowadays is the main reason for they getting raped.” I have two things to say
to people who hold this idea.
1. A few days
ago, I read in Anandabazar newspaper, “60-year-old man commits suicide after
raping five-year-old child in Uttar Pradesh”.
(https://bangla.hindustantimes.com/nation-and-world/old-man-commits-suicide-after-raping-a-child-in-uttar-pradesh/amp-31696649601246.html).
Not only that, after reading a news on the Internet, my mind was disturbed that
there is another incident of rape of a 14-month-old child. What is this now?
(https://www.anandabazar.com/west-bengal/man-convicted-for-raping-14-months-old-child-after-23-years-dgtl/cid/1362553).
“How was that 14-month-old child or that 5-year-old child
dressed to provoke someone to rape them?
2. Village
girls don’t wear body revealing clothes (if it matters at all!) like city
girls. They always wear so called ‘decent’ clothes, so why should any of them
become victims of this heinous crime?
***
My personal experience:
Today I’m explaining a small incident that happened to me….
I was studying in class 9 when this incident took place. It
was winter and I went to Bengali tuition class on a winter afternoon. During
Indian winter, the days are shorter and the nights are longer. It becomes dark
at 5:00 o’clock in the afternoon. My tuition was at 7:00 o’clock in the evening,
in a village like place its pretty late in the winter. The road through which I
had to return home was empty at 7:00 o’clock in the evening. My father used to
come to pick me up from tuition every day but on that day my father was late. I
was walking home alone through that empty alleyway. A little further, I saw
four to five boys sitting on one side of the road and playing games on their
phones and smoking cigarettes. At first, I thought I will not go and that I
should just stand at where I was. Then I thought it might be better to walk
cross them than to stand so I went ahead without standing. When the boys saw me
coming towards them, they started talking among themselves. When I was crossing
them, they said to me, “look at that girl! She looks like Mia Khalifa! let’s be
her Johnny sins”. Hearing their words like this, my fear made my throat dry and
my hands and feet was cold. They were slowly following me and making obscene
comments. In my mind I was calling God and just after two minutes I saw my father
coming with the car and I sighed seeing my father. When father got out of the
car, I hugged my father and cried, “Dad, if you were a little late, you might
not have been able to see me again”. That day I wore a long white dress and a
white veil, so why did I have to face such a situation? What was wrong with my
clothes? Or does a cloth matter?
Is it just the rape that should concern us? No, the number
of girl trafficking is also increasing everyday. Young girls (aged 12 to 14 or
16) from many places including Sundarbans, Malda, Murshidabad are kidnapped,
trafficked and forced into sex work. Now the question may arise that what can
be done to eliminate them? For me, every man should develop a more informed and
respectful view about women. No crime can be eradicated at once, but over the
years this should reduce instead of increasing its number.
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