... For example, this BBC article states, as if shocking, the statistic that a woman is raped in Delhi every 14 hours. That equates to 625 a year. Yet in England and Wales, which has a population about 3.5 times that of Delhi, we find a figure for recorded rapes of women that is proportionately four times larger: 9,509. Similarly, the Wall Street Journal decriesthe fact that in India just over a quarter of alleged rapists are convicted; in the US only 24% of alleged rapes even result in an arrest, never mind a conviction. This is the strange kind of reportage you tend to get on the issue.Owen Jones's excellent piece in the Independent is a breath of fresh air, asking people to acknowledge that rape, as well as gang rapes, happen in the west too. Similarly, Laura Bates's recent article on victim blaming should act as sufficient retort to anyone who thinks police chief KP Raghuvanshi's advice that women should carry chilli powder to prevent rape is symptomatic of a specifically Indian brand of misogyny.
The coverage of Damini's death strikes a particularly ironic note following recent media controversy over a rape, in Steubenville, Ohio, of a 16-year-old girl – allegedly by members of the high-school football team. The case is that the young woman was dragged, drunk and unresponsive, from party to party, where she was sexually abused. The brutal death of Damini has spurred Indian civil society to its feet, causing protest and unrest, bringing women and men into the streets, vocal in their demands for change. Sonia Gandhi has met the woman's parents. The army and the states of Punjab and Haryana have cancelled new year's celebrations. What happened in the US? In Steubenville, football-crazy townsfolk blamed the victim and it took a blogger – Alexandria Goddard, who is now being sued – and a follow-up article from the New York Times four months after the incident to get nationwide attention for the story.
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I don't really have much to say, but thought I'd make a topic on it what with the Indian girl dying after being gangraped, the Pakistani 9yr old being gang-raped and the whole Savile case. Ignoring the Savile case, people seem to think that sexual abuse isn't a problem in the "civilised" west, but no it's a worldwide problem. A sad, sickening, horrifying problem.
Did anyone see The Independent's front cover a few days ago: https://twitter.com/Independent/status/289499432167301122/photo/1/large