There were 24,923 reported rape cases in India last year. On average, 24% of rape cases end with a conviction. The verdict was in. A New Delhi court has found four men guilty of rape and murder in the case of a 23-year-old woman assaulted on a bus as it drove through the Indian capital in December. Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Akshay Kumar Singh face a possible death penalty when they are sentenced.
Judge Yogesh Khanna’s decision may help provide a sense of closure for the woman’s family and friends. But for India, the struggle to stop violence against women is far from over.
Under Indian laws and court rulings in this case, we – and the rest of the media – aren’t allowed to name the woman who died. But we shouldn’t let her case, or those of thousands of other women raped here every year, be forgotten.
For India, much hard work remains to turn the world’s largest democracy into a place that is not only safe for women, but where women are able to contribute fully to society and the economy. Nothing less than the country’s ability to pull itself out of poverty hangs in the balance.
India’s daughters face systematic discrimination. They receive less schooling and have lower rates of literacy than men. They have fewer opportunities to work in the modern sectors of the economy. They have less freedom than men to make choices in their lives.
Changing that will require serious rethinking in the halls of government, in courts, schools and police stations. It also means change in Indian homes.
As the mother of the woman who died after being raped in December put it: “First, we have to change ourselves. Until we change the mindset in our homes, this will continue.” WSJ
No comments:
Post a Comment