India Teen Commits Suicide After Police Pressure Her To Drop Gang Rape Case, Marry Attacker
Source: The Huffington Post
A 17-year-old Indian girl who was gang-raped committed suicide after police pressured her to drop the case and marry one of her attackers, police and a relative said on Thursday.
Amid the ongoing uproar over the gang-rape of a student on a bus in New Delhi earlier this month, the latest case has again shone the spotlight on the police's handling of sex crimes.
One police officer has been sacked and another suspended over their conduct after the assault during the festival of Diwali on November 13 in the Patiala region in the Punjab, according to officials.
The teenager was found dead on Wednesday night after swallowing poison.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/27/india-gang-rape-suicide_n_2370859.html
This is one of those stories that makes me think it wouldn't be a bad thing for the human race--all of us--to be wiped from the face of this planet.
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)And pour over into the Atlantic.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)it fell off the radar once India was replaced as the bad guy du jour
aquart
(69,014 posts)That did India for me.
mettamega
(81 posts)I been feeling very sad lately about the human condition, esp. for girls, women around the world, including here in the USA - so appreciate how you are feeling - and some of us are really doing our best to mature into our possible humanness - something that we have to want and work at
question everything
(47,573 posts)I would have considered India a tolerant country with all the diversity that it has.
Obviously, I am wrong.
Heather MC
(8,084 posts)because their is a shortage of women sometimes a woman have to make a baby with her single brother inlaw.
She basicaly has to be the wife of all the men in the household. And of course if she refuses they just force her.
musical_soul
(775 posts)They still have problems with female infanticide, sex-selective abortion, and dowries. It's really sad.
Scairp
(2,749 posts)Virtually all marriages are arranged, meaning neither the bride nor the groom gets to select their partner. It's considered dishonorable for anyone to choose their own spouse. The family has to do it for them.
JCMach1
(27,586 posts)And VERY Patriarchal
triplepoint
(431 posts)and I don't care if this post gets removed.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)chuckstevens
(1,201 posts)My heart goes out to the young lady and her family. I am so sorry that this was the tragic ending to such her brief 17 years on this earth. She should have experienced the joys we take for granted; falling in love, getting married, maybe being a a mother, and to grow old surrounded by family and friends. Instead, these animals defiled this young girl her and to ad insult to injury, the police refused to take action. Was there no one on that bus who had the courage to try and stop it? Sometime I'm ashamed to be a member of the human race.
zbdent
(35,392 posts)but, that might be the headline in the not-too-distant future, the way Indiana goes ...
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)SoapBox
(18,791 posts)WTF is with men?
"One police officer has been sacked and another suspended over their conduct..."
How about jailed?!?!?
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)They just failed to act upon it. Not sure if there's actually a law to prosecute them under.
aquart
(69,014 posts)Not that easy for some men to get a wife. They were packaging the victim and making her a gift.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)So I have to rely on the bit posted above or go looking for another article.
Is there a law that the officer broke? I'm with you on the outrage, I just don't see where that country's laws were obviously violated by the police officer.
This is a human rights issue, and not every nation recognizes and protects such rights equally, unfortunately. I have read of this sort of thing in other countries, I'm a little surprised it happened in India, but then again, they at least fired him, so that suggests it's not 'operating as intended'.
But was it illegal? Obviously it should be, but I don't know if their laws make it a valid expectation that the officer would be in jail for this.
Ash_F
(5,861 posts)Right here in the good ol' U S of A.
UnrepentantLiberal
(11,700 posts)rollin74
(1,994 posts)I cannot comprehend the notion that a rape victim should be expected to marry her attacker
absolutely disgusting
salib
(2,116 posts)ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)Don't worry, we most likely will be.
Response to ZombieHorde (Reply #14)
AverageJoe90 This message was self-deleted by its author.
malz
(89 posts)On a much lighter note, I love your Stalking Zombie!
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)Skittles
(153,275 posts)AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)Indeed, it does make one despair for humanity. I seriously hope the bastards who did this get a LOOOONNNGGG prison term for this shit.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)aquart
(69,014 posts)I want his balls in a small box.
LynneSin
(95,337 posts)For the longest time Indians practiced sex selection in order to get a prefered male child. Although Dowry were banned in 1961 they still happen and meant that if you're stuck with a girl you were gonna have to come up with alot of cash to help get your child married.
Although Dowry is banned in India there is still that stigma that somehow a boy is better than a girl.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)?? Honestly curious what your point is.
How does a jurisdiction's gender ratio correlate with incidence of heterosexual rape?
LynneSin
(95,337 posts)avebury
(10,953 posts)smart and start demanding that the families with sons come up with a dowry. After all the families with daughters should be able to be pickier about who they marry their daughters off too.
LynneSin
(95,337 posts)Mind you not with dowry. But probably why the judge wanted that girl to marry one of her rapists - those guys probably weren't finding brides
JI7
(89,286 posts)fewer females, but even in some cases where that female would have married the guy through the traditional way she is refusing to .
i read an article where many of them were even preferring indians guys who live/work abroad even non indian citizens .
closeupready
(29,503 posts)/lack of brides, you can't reasonably argue that in this specific case it was.
And certainly, even if you were inclined to try to argue that point, you can't deny that there are female prostitutes available.
Auntie Bush
(17,528 posts)the men should be the ones to give the wife's family a dowry. Then maybe people wouldn't be trying to get rid of their female babies.
sbmvv
(30 posts)But an anthropological survey of India done in the early 1990s found that 6/10 communities practiced "bride price" where the bride's family is paid. Dowry in reverse.
Would add of course that Punjab is not one of them.
Never think that you understand that country when the people there themselves don't.
proudleftist526
(3 posts)and may the people who caused her suffering burn in hell
sbmvv
(30 posts)To restate: I hope that as a Hindu, male of Indian descent I am not viewed as persona non-grata on this particular thread.
Punjab has the record for the lowest rape conviction rate in all of India at 10.8% of reported rapes.
Now to some statistical perspective on Rape in India.
In India, it is suggested that only 10% of rapes are reported.
See:
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/The+iceberg+of+rape/1/46911.html
Note something interesting from the article:
"People from the upper class and the middle class do not report rape cases. It is mostly the people from the lower class that come out to seek police intervention."
Horrible statistics to be sure but consider even in the United States the following:
"It's widely recognized that rape is one of the most underreported offenses in the United States with empirical studies estimating that merely 15-20 percent of cases are reported to the police,"
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gE1QS2fCilbjwmlhX-gawdmUgk_g
If we are to compare 2009 statistics for the US and 2011 statistics for India we see that the in the US there were 88,907 rapes reported and in India there were 24,206.
I will leave the mathematical scaling due to under-reporting to you.
Even in as safe a place as the United Kingdom we have this stunning analysis:
http://www.surrey.ac.uk/mediacentre/press/2009/16532_between_7090_rapes_thought_to_go_unreported_and_94_of_reported_cases_dont_end_in_a_conviction.htm
"Fear of not being believed, not wanting to get their attacker - who is often known to them - into trouble and a sense that they could or should have avoided the assault mean only a fraction of rape cases are being reported. Of those reported, 50-66% are dropped by police, and of the remaining cases that go on to be considered by the Crown Prosecution Service, 33-50% are discontinued.
About 14,000 cases were reported last year to police, but academics suggest there to be seven times as many unreported cases."
What angers the protesters in India is the apparent intransigence of officials.
When Indian police choose to act, they do arrest and charge somebody in 93.8% of reported cases. However, the conviction rate (based on the total number of reported cases) is 26.4%. This is a sharp drop from 46% in 1971 but apparently (and to me shockingly) still higher than the conviction rates in the UK, the US and even Sweden. Indeed it would appear that 15/16 rapists in the US go unpunished (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gE1QS2fCilbjwmlhX-gawdmUgk_g).
Consider how bad Punjab is to have a conviction rate of only 10.8%
However, to get those results, the victim (even when the police are well-intentioned - which does on occasion occur ), is put through a horrible ordeal. There is no sensitivity or apparent compassion shown and of course in some cases the Police are reluctant to do anything (witness what happened to the poor girl who committed suicide after the Police forced her to drop the case) and are in collusion with the criminals.
Even after overcoming those hurdles, the Court process is stunningly slow. Cases drag on and on. Each day that passes demoralizes the victim who is usually bereft of much needed support.
Until that changes, the outrage and the anger will grow against the authorities.
Furthermore, women in India - especially in urban areas - are subjected to widespread sexual harassment that has been termed (idiotically in my view) eve-teasing which makes a simple daily commute a horrendous experience.
It should be noted that we are not talking about a majority or even a substantial minority of Indian men doing this but that it occurs on a very wide scale in undeniable.
Delhi, it should be noted, is the worst offender in this regard (http://ibnlive.in.com/news/delhi-witnesses-more-rapes-than-the-next-five-metros-put-together/311263-3.html).
This is where the blame cannot solely lie with the authorities but with a deeper societal malaise.
Also, patriarchy, arranged marriages and religious affiliation are red-herrings in this debate.
We know that India was seemingly safer for women in 1953 and these assaults on women - verbal physical or otherwise - while by no means unknown - was much less prevalent and that when the country was even more tradition bound and held in the thrall of such practices and beliefs.
Don't misunderstand me - I do not support patriarchy or the conservative interpretations of religious texts used to subordinate women. I simply say that things have gotten worse even when there have been strides in shaking the old order.
The issues are not closely linked. The old order has to be shaken up and some of it dismantled for reasons unconnected with rape.
Certainly a patriarchal society can easily become misogynistic as parts of India (read Haryana and Punjab) have become.
However, India's religious patriarchy or social-ills (and there are many) do not explain why in countries where they don't exist, crimes against women and rape in particular are so common as to be almost endemic.
See for example Korea:
http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/2009/08/high-rates-of-subway-sexual-harassment-in-korea-and-japan/
http://asia-gazette.com/news/south-korea/127
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/07/south-korea-confront-rapes-after-girls-death/
http://thegrandnarrative.com/category/korean-feminism/sexual-harassment-korean-feminism/
or the links I provided for the US and the UK.
I firmly believe that the rise in crime against women in India is as a result is an unresponsive, unsympathetic and corrupt police force, a lack of adequate victim support from either family or society and a ponderous judicial system where law-breakers are unpunished.
What I would ask is that blanket views of disparagement or disdain for India and us Indians (not that it is entirely undeserved) be tempered by the realization that even we in the so-called developed world, with our attitude of cultural and moral superiority have done an awful job of protecting women from rapists or at even getting justice for them when rape happens.
Arkana
(24,347 posts)This is shit that SHOULD NOT HAPPEN in a civilized country.
To a point I agree - certainly about it not happening in any country.
However, India is not a socially conservative as you might think.
People in the main do not consider these things right. They get angry when police don't act.
Khap panchayats can make decrees that are misogynistic and which are then ignored.
What is the problem is an unresponsive Police force and a dangerous tendency towards outright misogynism in Harayna and Punjab.
As to your point about a "civilized country". I agree.
Just as the murder of 26 children at a school should not occur.
sbmvv
(30 posts)"The ASI Nasib Singh, who was dismissed from service on Thursday and was on Friday booked for abetment to suicide of the gangrape victim, has been arrested"
http://www.ibtimes.co.in/articles/419217/20121230/patiala-gang-rape-victim-commits-suicide-dismissed.htm
Some additional details:
Sources said that the IG Paramjit Singh Gill and SSP Patiala Gurprit Gill were unaware about the suicide since the SHO deleted the details of the rape case from the crime report compiled at the district headquarters every day.
Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/patiala-girl-commits-suicide-after-gangrape-blames-cops-for-humiliating-her/1/239705.html
On the rapists:
the girl was allegedly raped by two persons Balwinder Singh and Gurpreet Singh with the connivance of a woman, identified as Shinderpal Kaur.
http://www.financialexpress.com/news/patiala-gangrape-victim-suicide-months-after-the-ghastly-incident-and-days-after-the-death-of-victim-punjab-govt-says-will-probe-case/1051468
In addition to this:
http://www.dailypioneer.com/nation/119306-delhi-patiala-show-the-way-rape-victims-come-forward.html