dagblog - Comments for "Swiss tourist gang-raped in Madhya Pradesh, India"

That sounds harder to enforce

Orion — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 03:29:42 +0000

That sounds harder to enforce than an anti-gun law.

New York Times main news

artappraiser — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 03:20:30 +0000

New York Times main news section report on the law, published 3 hours ago:

Bill on Crime Against Women Passes in India
By HeatherTimmons, March 21/22, 2013

NEW DELHI — India’s Parliament passed a comprehensive bill on Thursday to impose stronger penalties on men who attack women and to criminalize offenses like stalking and voyeurism. [....]

“I think this is an important moment,” said Vrinda Grover, a women’s rights advocate and lawyer. “We have taken quite a few steps forward.”[....]

India’s democracy has often been faulted for being so unruly and its Parliament so dysfunctional that fundamental development issues like education and malnutrition are never adequately addressed. The fact that the rape bill passed both houses of Parliament speedily this week, despite the disruption of several unexpected adjournments caused by a defection of one of the governing Congress Party’s crucial allies, is a sign that the voices of thousands of protesters had been heard, activists said. [....]

“This is a step forward, but the government could have done more homework to bring about a stronger legislation,” said Nirmala Sitharaman, the national spokeswoman for the Bharatiya Janata Party, the leading opposition bloc.

Some women’s organizations said the law fell short of offering complete protection for women from sexual harassment. “There are so many recommendations that were rejected by the government,” said Sandhya Valluripally, president of the Progressive Organization of Women, including a provision the group sought that listed child trafficking in the definition of rape.

Activists said that continued public attention and debate on the issue of gender equality were still needed. “The spectrum of change India requires is much, much broader than amendments to the criminal laws,” said Ms. Grover, the lawyer. “We need to really focus on enforcement and implementation.”

I recall some Denver cop(s?)

PeraclesPlease — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 01:36:05 +0000

In reply to Underreporting is especially

I recall some Denver cop(s?) a while back charged with picking up & raping underage girls, just took a Google & found another Denver cop just convicted of something similar. Hard to trust anyone.

Underreporting is especially

artappraiser — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 00:54:55 +0000

In reply to I don't claim its the same

Underreporting is especially egregious in India, where police in many areas not only act as enablers but even as perps, that's actually one of the main problems there. See the new article I posted downthread.

This Could Be the Most

artappraiser — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 00:50:51 +0000

In reply to Swiss tourist gang-raped in Madhya Pradesh, India

This Could Be the Most Important Part of India's Anti-Rape Law
The country's decrepit justice system works against sexual violence victims. Here's how the new bill may help.
By Olga Khazan, The Atlantic, March 21, 2013

[....] The New York Times' India Ink blog has a good summary of the new measures, and they seemingly address all of the various aspersions hurled at India's society and police in the aftermath of the case: That women in India don't feel safe traveling alone, they feel stigmatized after they're assaulted, they're treated poorly when they turn to the authorities -- in general, that Indian women aren't, fundamentally, equal.

The new bill makes big changes to the way rape and sexual assault cases are prosecuted. It strengthens punishments for sexual assault by police, alters definitions for certain crimes, and even enacts a new prohibition on "voyeurism."

In a controversial move, it allows the death penalty in cases of rape if the victim dies or is left in a vegetative state. It also raises the age of consent to 18 from 16 -- a statute that prompted hot debate in a country where one in every two women are married before their 18th birthday.

"The bill ... aims to protect mothers and sisters of this country. Over years, such stringent law has not been made," Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said after it passed.

It's so stringent, in fact, that it raises the question of how bad India's rape epidemic must have been to necessitate such a harsh and sweeping law.

It's true that India has a terrible problem with sexual violence -- but looking at rape police reports wouldn't give you that impression at all. In an analysis of UNODC data from 2011, Sharad Goel, a senior researcher at Microsoft Research found that India actually ranks near the bottom of the international list of countries according to rape prevalence. Here's her chart, via the blog Messy Matters, with a chart by Kelly Savage.

[.....]

Meanwhile, the United States and even European countries like Belgium and France were at the top of the list.

So what's wrong with this picture?

If you look closely, you'll see that this is the number of police-recorded rape offenses-- the only kind we can really measure. There are certain aspects to Indian culture that particularly exacerbate the problem of underreporting, which is already one of the biggest issues in gathering rape statistics.

As my former colleague Rama Lakshmi and I reported, India's justice system in its current form works against rape victims at every turn. [.....]

The US is hardly the poster

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 04:23:11 +0000

In reply to I don't claim its the same

The US is hardly the poster child for sexual respect or law & order.

There are a number of European countries for example where we might say rape is not "epidemic".

Not to dismiss problems with sexual abuse & violence, but there's great variation around the world in where a woman might be in grave continual danger vs. a more manageable (but still disturbing & actionable) level.

We should certainly distinguish between the incidence of violent sexual attacks that leaves a girl dying in a hospital in Singapore vs. a much less traumatic date rape, even though wanting both to decrease.

I don't claim its the same

ocean-kat — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 22:13:18 +0000

In reply to Re: Indian police There is a

I don't claim its the same everywhere and epidemic is a subjective term. If it works for India, as you used it, I think it fits everywhere.

The US is among those at the top of the list in effectiveness in dealing with rape. According to United States Department of Justice document Criminal Victimization in the United States, there were overall 191,670 victims of rape or sexual assault reported in 2005. That doesn't include unreported rapes or attempted rapes. 1 of 6 U.S. women have experienced an attempted or completed rape. (according to Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

I'm comfortable in calling that an epidemic though as I said, its a subjective term, and opinions may vary on how accurate that word is.

Sure, cultural norms can change and have changed. Far as we may have gone we still have a long way to go.

http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/reporting-rates

Re: Indian police There is a

artappraiser — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 20:13:25 +0000

In reply to The child was gang raped in

Re: Indian police

There is a consciousness raising process going on in India. Where most police eventually hopefully get the message. Might take years, as it did in this country. And like as happened in this country, even after many years of cultural change about acceptable norms, there might be some areas, like ~~Steubenville~~ Stupidville, Ohio that lag.

What I saw in this case, where a precious tourist was raped, more valuable to India's PTB than Indian women themselves (the latter available in mass quantities and not even that valued in utereo) was criminal perps from a lower class sending a message for police to read: we got this power, you let us have it and even support it at times, we ain't giving it up. It's probably not the case that the perps knew they were sending that message, but I think it's there nonetheless. I.E., tourists being raped is maybe where Indian police start getting serious about not enabling a rape-is-no-big-deal culture.

I've said it before on Ramona's thread on this issue and I'll say it again: I have more optimism about India being able to change its culture than a lot of other places. Partly because I think shame plays a larger role there than it does elsewhere. That is why I find "rape news" from India of more interest than say, a rape in NYC. And it also is why I (and others, no doubt) find the Steubenville story of interest, that shame and publicity might finally effect change ("Anonymous" obviously thinks public shaming would be a good tool here.)

And to oceankat: yes, France has a misogyny problem, and those stories, and of feminists fighting back against "Strauss-Kahn"-culture as well as gang rape there, interests me along the same lines. But I don't agree rape is epidemic everywhere, and I do think that cultural norms that enable it can change, and have been changed in plenty of places. And I think it's important to note that it can change, and that\s why it's important not to believe or even stress that it's the same everywhere.

The child was gang raped in

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 19:28:21 +0000

In reply to My issue with this "epidemic

The child was gang raped in 1986 when she was 14. The just completed trials for crimes around 1999-2001. So we have 2 data points from 27 years ago and 12+ years ago. Gee, this is going to be an intellectual discussion.

How do we define your "epidemic"? Epidemic everywhere? Bullshit. There are places where it's high, places where it's not. I was "spouting out" about mass rapes in the Congo years ago, as well as South Africa. If you want to discuss rape epidemics, good places to start. If you want to pontificate vacuously, well, you're off to a good start.

Re: Indian police, almost every case noted there had been arrests made. Whether that always happens, worth considering that maybe they're sometimes trying.

My issue with this "epidemic

ocean-kat — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 18:51:47 +0000

In reply to Nice to start off being an

My issue with this "epidemic of gang rapes" is it seems to target India in particular

If that's your issue why are you bothering me with your nonsense? Look again at my post. "Rape is epidemic everywhere, absolutely everywhere, ... Even in so called civilized countries."

I know how useless the US police were when I reported my wife's near-rape: 20 minutes asking her what she was wearing, why she was walking alone down a fairly well-lit major boulevard at midnight a half-mile from a trendy students' bar/theater/restaurant zone. And then they went looking for the guy. Brilliant.

You know, that's exactly what I thought when you posted "India increased the penalty for rape to 20 years, upped penalties for crimes like throwing acid, and added capital penalty for death or coma from rape" to resistance above. Its easy to up the penalties but meaningless when the police in India are even worse then the US police you describe. It will take years of unrelenting work to change the police. As you describe we've made only small progress after years of activism in the US. Post your comment to your response to resistance and you can have an argument with yourself about how superficial your comment was on the trivial "reform" of India's penalties for rape.

Thank you for "educating" me via Wikipedia.

I didn't link you to Wikipedia. I gave you a name of a child who was gang raped and went on to become a major activist in France to start your research on gang rape in France. An issue you clearly have no clue about. That you used that name to go to a superficial site for information was your choice, not mine. But pretty typical for you when you decide to spout out on an issue you haven't studied until last night.