“Have we become so insensitive or we have simply accepted this as our fate?” Tweeted Swati Maliwal, the chairwoman of the Delhi Commission for Women, after an 8-months-old girl was raped and hospitalised in India’s capital New Delhi.
Speaking on behalf of the government body that was set up to help protect women, Maliwal’s tweet gives a voice to the voiceless. “What to do? How can Delhi sleep today when 8 month baby has been brutally raped in Capital?” She continued. This deeply distressing case is unfortunately not alone in the disturbing sexual assaults that have taken place in India in recent years. In fact, India does not report a higher number of rapes per capita than many other countries.
Just a few months ago, in September 2017, the Indian government had rejected loud public outcries to outlaw marital rape, claiming that such a move could “destabilise the institution of marriage and put husbands at risk of harassment.” In their statement to the court, government lawyers wrote that “What may appear to be marital rape to an individual wife, may not appear so to others. As to what constitutes marital rape and what would constitute marital non-rape, it needs to be defined precisely before a view on its criminalisation is taken.” It is precisely this rejection of personhood and of individualistic experiences channeled by higher rules in India that is fuelling a sexual abusive norm that has become rooted in the country and has risen in recent years.
There have been several cases of sexual abuse in India that have infiltrated global media. From the 2012 case of a 12-year-old girl gang raped and consequently dying in hospital two weeks later, to a 10-year-old girl who was raped and impregnated by a relative and refused abortion. Those instances should never be erased from our memories. But for every highly reported case there are hundreds of thousands of those that occur in the background; the daily abuses that alone and together put to shame a failed law system that is otherwise meant to protect women with all of its capacity.
While constitutionally Indian women’s rights are equal to men’s in many regards, their treatment within society and access to basic rights such as education, health services and opportunities for empowerment and autonomy remain undeniably lesser. Many organisations and movements are fighting to not only shift the weighted legislations that stop the country from progressing into one that protects its women and cherishes gender equality, but also to educate many women around the country on women’s rights. Sayfty for example is working inside communities to nurture conversation and shift how harassment is perceived. And WASH United is fighting for better and safer sanitation management of menstruation while lifting taboos around it in places where many women believe their periods are a type of disease.
It is from within that India will begin to tackle its sexual harassment problem, and it is only with education and conversation and persistent fighting for equal rights that this shift will come.