Here’s an interesting article from the Christian Science Monitor (so you know they are not biased in favor of India!) with rape rates and reactions in it.
Some interesting stuff, especially about the Steubenville case.
saying once again, per capita numbers would still be significantly low compared to other countries even after taking care of under-reporting.
the problem is, what happens after the rape - rehabilitation, status of a raped woman in the society, swift conviction etc and also the general status of women in India(it is improving but not yet ideal). these are the core issues. There is a need for police’s gender sensitization(particularly in the north) and special benches in the courts for hearing women issues in a timely manner…
Why is there a need for special benches? Can regular judges not be trusted to preside?
news editors are the most powerful opinion makers these days. media decided to highlight the victim blaming mentality in India(good thing tht it did that) but applied it in a wrong case.
much like opinion makers projecting Assad as the bad guy even if he may be most like an ideal secular and progressive leader…
dedicated benches to fast track the cases, to avoid them frm getting dragged .
thats not correct.
So should there be specialized benches for every sort of crime?
you can categorize. but certainly for crime against women.
Jesus, people. I am as shocked by this as anyone, but it’s possible to sympathize with the victim and wonder what the hell they were doing there at the same time. As Martini Enfield or someone points out, nobody cried “victim blaming” when Iranian border guards arrested those hikers.
What point are you making here? Regions of high criminality aren’t especially “rapey” so much as they are violent and prone to high criminality. The rape component is usually going to be present also but it all depends on circumstances. Multiple male assailants vs small number of victims = most/all female victims raped. That’s how the world is.
Also, your pure and absolute ignorance on this matter is telling in the words and situations you are describing. Let me repeat we are not talking about walking down the streets of Baltimore, Baltimore is, despite all its ills, a civilized, policed city in the United States. We’re talking about walking around wilderness where the only people who travel through it that aren’t bandits know the situation and are not traveling with a “chaperone” but probably in a convoy with armed people of their own around. These aren’t areas locals “travel to for their daily tasks.” That’s like saying “if the DMZ is so dangerous you’d think Korean women would get killed there all the time doing their daily tasks.” No you wouldn’t, no one that isn’t fucking insane goes into the DMZ at all, period.
The DMZ is the most extreme situation, because it’s basically a death sentence to wander around it. Stretches of South America and Africa that largely are outside established settlements of human beings are simply dangerous. No one “goes about their daily tasks” in those areas because it is simply too dangerous to be outside of settled places in those parts of the world, the people outside are dangerous people traveling around that territory because they hide in hostile terrain when not up to trouble elsewhere and/or they are on their way to somewhere else to start problems.
Now, I have absolutely no idea if this region of India is like that, but all I’m saying is there are parts of the world you simply don’t travel, period. And I felt that was the core point truthSeeker2 was trying to point out, albeit not worded all that well. While I don’t know what the situation is in this part of India, they weren’t raped in a village where “locals live” they were raped in wilderness. I know first hand in some parts of the world the locals don’t get into the wilderness precisely because 1) you don’t need to in order to live your daily life and 2) it’s incredibly dangerous.
Also, if you ever read State Department travel bulletins what I’m talking about is exactly why for many countries the State Department says not to travel outside of major cities. There are still many parts of the world where you cannot do that all too safely.
In the Ancient world it was simply understood, if you left the protection of your home to travel large distances you’d cross through wilderness. The only other people you might run into are travelers traveling for trade purposes / other business or bandits looking to rob/kill you. Sometimes those two overlapped based on opportunism. But anyway, that’s why in the Ancient world couples didn’t go for pleasure hikes for miles through the unsettled parts, and why merchant caravans had an entire team of armed guards ready to fight large groups of bandits.
Picturing that, mind that some parts of the world aren’t so far removed from that reality. This event is quite different from the gang rape in Delhi recently that got so much attention. That’s a type of horrible rape born from criminality and fucked up problems within Indian society and is indeed comparable to women in America who are raped “going about their daily lives.” “Banditry” happens in areas of low to non-existent state control in which there is generally not really a society or laws at all. In some countries such areas still exist while other areas are more similar to say, the United States or Western Europe.
Good posts Martin Hyde. Thank you.
Actually, if anything, this thread has convinced me never to go to India, not with the attitudes expressed towards women.
its a romantic song. You want a song to dance to? - try thisone. 
the english translation of the earlier song here
if you want word by word translation, pls let me know, i will try.
This is a depressing topic, but that story captures at least some of my thinking. The official Indian rape figures are, I think, obviously wrong. The actual figure is probably around the same as those for US. However, that comes with the additional cost that most women in India generally lead lives that are far more restricted than women in the west. So obviously the lot of women is nowhere near as good in India as in the developed world, and by and large, Indian attitudes towards women have a ways to go.
However, given the demonstrable fact that attitudes towards women in the US are not perfect either, I find some of the comments in this thread to be hypocritical, boorish and needlessly judgmental. Yes, attitudes towards women in India require a lot of change. Yes, groups of young men in India sometimes behave like predators, in particular two well publicised cases of rape. Yes, some politicians have made stupid statements in the aftermath.
But many, many other politicians, including from their own party(so not just political opportunists), have denounced those statements. Millions of people took to the streets to protest the rape in Delhi. There has been a furore in the local state assembly over the minister’s statement that those tourists should have been more careful(That probably is just political opportunism). The assailants in both cases HAVE been arrested and are under trial. A new bill with harsher punishments for rape has been tabled in parliament. There are a number of movements at the ground level to try and improve the attitudes towards women. We’re a country that only has 60 years of existence behind us. We are trying, for our own sake, to address the flaws we have. If the only contribution you can make is to point out that we haven’t yet succeeded, and belong in the back with the rest of them ‘third world’ countries, you’re doing worse than not helping.
And Truthseeker, I’m glad you agree that this is a horrific incident. But I do want to say that just as Americans don’t help when they make their holier-than-thou comments, the only thing an Indian should be concerned with in this matter is the shameful behaviour of our own citizens, not any potential carelessness on the part of our guests.
Cmon. Stop baiting the poor guy. You know better than anyone that there is a problem with the Indian judicial system. And really, if as a society we decide that certain kinds of crime horrify us enough that we don’t want to wait until the entire system gets fixed but instead we want to set up a parallel system to process those crimes, what, precisely, is the problem?
Is this you acting holier-than-thou with me now?
you want to fairly analysis this particular incident, then you got to bring out both the carelessness shown and the nature of that area.
There is nothing for us to fairly analyse here at all. Incidents of this sort shouldn’t be happening anywhere in the country. Full stop. Tourists should be free to travel and bike across the country without fear. Is that not enough analysis?
see, the problem with you is, in order to please your readers, you sometimes only make diplomatic statements just sounding nice n correct but not useful enough.
Say, even by this decade end, India is not able to COMPLETELY eradicate naxalism and completely bring all forest areas under order.
wouldn’t you still want tourists to come to India? but wanna let them know that all areas are not safe and certain areas are unsafe, n tht they should inquire beforehand?
My knowledge is based on observations and on experience, so I will treat your intended sarcasm as a compliment. But if you are an Indian man (are you?), or a fan of India, may I please suggest that you take a critical, objective, look at this society, instead of professing indignation whenever it is rightly criticised? .:mad:
What you mean is: India has a REPORTED rape rate of around 1 or 2 per 100,000. The real rate is most likely much, much higher, especially as women are actively discouraged not to report sexual assault to the law enforcement authorities. There have been cases of police officers physically violating women, and besides the somewhat extreme act of actual penetration, women are frequently groped on the streets of urban India. I myself have encountered this too often to disregard it. Further, it would be silly to deny casual sexual harassment does not even register on the consciences of Indian men – even the media created term “Eve teasing” for this suggests that lewd gestures, passing personal remarks within her earshot about her appearance, and even deliberately brushing your hand against her breasts or crotch as all percieved as light-hearted fun. Adam, you see, is just being naughty, like any “healthy boy”. Actual remark from a mother whose son was arrested for Eve teasing in Kolkata (around 1990) : “Oh, no, my boy comes from a respectable family, he would never do something like that: Those girls must have tempted him”.:rolleyes:
few morons may have taken unfair advantage in a crowded bus here in Delhi and may have gotten away but its not at all perceived as light-hearted fun here n is a fairly sure shot way to get yourself beaten up if you do this openly.