BHOPAL, India
While returning from school one day last year, 16-year-old Priya, whose real name has been concealed, was raped. Priya comes from a very poor tribal family in central Indian state Madhya Pradesh's Betul district. She had little protection, legal or otherwise, and the experience became an endless torment for her.
“It was the most difficult situation of my life. I lived under constant terror that the man would be standing on my way to rape me again,” she says.
Priya was not wrong; she found herself being targeted by the same man. He threatened to kill her family, to make the abuse public if she dared to inform the police. She continuously faced his harassment, until one day she suffered from stomachache.
The doctor who examined her told her she was pregnant; it was only then that her parents discovered her ordeal and lodged a complaint with the police. Apart from Priya, her parents also suffered mental anguish because of the social stigma attached to rape in India, especially in rural areas. In most cases, girls and their kin remain silent and refrain from lodging complaints with the police for fear the family's reputation will be at stake.
Madhya Pradesh continues to be one of the most dangerous places for girls in India. Every day, on average, seven minors are raped in the state. According to data available from the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), almost half of the 4,335 females raped in the state in 2013 were minors. In 2010, the number of raped minors was 1,182, it has risen every year.
The situation is alarming but the state government has been accused of failing to do enough to protect the girls. Recently, the state's Home Minister Babulal Gaur created a controversy when he said that rape, is “sometimes right”.
“This is a social crime which depends on men and women; sometimes it’s right, sometimes it’s wrong,” said Gaur, who was Madhya Pradesh's chief minister between 2004 and 2005.
“In a state like Madhya Pradesh, girls face violence whenever they try to assert themselves. Men take it as a challenge and attack them sexually so that girls should not dare to come out of their houses,” says Rakesh Diwan, a social activist based in Madhya Pradesh.
Diwan added that girls have now started publicly calling for their rights but that has also meant they are facing increasing sexual attacks. Madhya Pradesh's government has reserved 50 percent of total seats in local bodies for women. That means women from the lower tiers of the caste system have found themselves in positions of influence; a reality that angers many males belonging to the more dominant castes.
“Earlier girls were pressurized by their own families not to report such incidents to the police due to social stigma. But now girls are not ready to suffer and want rapists to be punished. They are fighting their own battle now,” says Diwan.
Social activists also feel that the government lacks the willpower to act, otherwise the issues would have been avoided.
Sangini Women Resource Centre is an organization working for women’s rights. Centre director Prathna Mishra said, “There is a common mentality that girls are made for men only. They treat girls as their own commodity or product. But when men see that girls aren’t ready to accept their demands, they sexually abuse them.”
“In rural areas, people belonging to so-called lower castes are still treated as inferior. People from higher castes feel that they can do anything to them," says Mishra. "And if the girls refuse their advances, they try to attack their honor. It is something which really scares girls and women.”
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