Raped, 24 weeks pregnant, abandoned by family, court denies permsission to abort

The Times of India had recently reported --
AHMEDABAD: Apr 7, 2015, 05.45AM IST A 24-year old woman, who is seven months pregnant from rape, has moved Gujarat high court seeking permission to abort her unwanted child.

Law, however, does not allow medical termination of pregnancy of over 20 weeks. Unable to allow the woman to abort her pregnancy, the court on Monday asked the state government how it could help if she delivers the unwanted child. Justice J B Pardiwala said a seven-month fetus has high survival chances and there is no question of taking life by allowing abortion.

The Surat-based woman was abducted from her village in Botad by seven people. Six months into the ordeal, she escaped. Freedom spelt more agony as she was 24 weeks pregnant and her husband and in-laws dumped her citing her pregnancy. Her own family also did not want her to have the child. Botad police too refused to register FIR and insisted on a compromise. 

For more -
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/Rape-survivors-abortion-plea-stumps-Gujarat-HC/articleshow/46831473.cms

What do you think should be done? Write in with your views.

Condone rape, mar the development of society

The recent statements by two Samajwadi Party leaders, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Abu Azmi on rape are a direct slap on the face of the Indian women.

The Indian Constitution has given Indian women an equal status. But Mulayam declared on April 10, as India was getting ready to go to polls, that it was unfair to award death penalty to rapists for their 'mistake'. Mulayam, who has been chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and the defence minister of India, is the leader of Samajwadi Party that is currently ruling in the state. Speaking at a election rally in the town of Moradabad, he promised to bring about changes in the tough anti-rape law if his party comes to power in the 2014 general elections. Read the full story here. It was his terming rape as ‘a mistake committed by boys’ that had women fuming.

Abu Azmi went a step further. He called for punishing a woman who is raped! He is reported to have said the following when a reporter asked him for a solution to the problem of rapes: "Solution is this: any woman if, whether married or unmarried, goes along with a man, with or without her consent, should be hanged. Both should be hanged. It shouldn't be allowed even if a woman goes by consent." For more on Azmi's comment, click on the link. Later, after facing the ire of women’s organisations and some political parties, he retracted. By that time his son had come out with a statement citing a generation gap between senior members of the party and others who were of the view that a rapist deserved strict punishment. But that was a little too late. The message of what the leaders stand for had been made loud and clear.

When rape is termed a 'mistake' by boys and men, it completely negates the enormity of the crime that is known to scar a woman for life. At the same time, the blame is put squarely on the woman for the crime. Mulayam Singh Yadav epitomises this mindset that treats girls and women as second class citizens, as commodities and puts boys and men at a pedestal, worthy of special treatment.

With their utterances, Azmi and Mulayam join a chain of men in positions of power, whose statements keep the women subjugated and shackled in a society that is already heavily biased against the woman. In fact, these statements can be said to lead to greater violence against the female of the species, not just physical and mental, but that which stifles her very existence: rising number of female foetuses being aborted, neglect of the female child, poor literacy and education levels, poor participation in the organised workforce.

Statements like these negate the work of many individuals and organisations which have been trying very hard to bring about a change in the status of Indian women. When a common person finds a leader endorsing such a view, he is only emboldened, and once again the notion that a woman can be treated any way one wants, reverberates through the society.

The woman has traditionally been blamed for the violence on her. Rape has been used to keep women subjugated, ensuring that they do not step out of the many restrictions imposed on them: of dress, of behaviour, of their place in society, of being second to men. It was after decades of silence and inaction that the rape law was made stringent. It was a gang rape of horrific proportions in a bus moving on the roads of South Delhi, the most affluent of India’s neighbourhoods, that shook the nation and finally saw a lax law getting some teeth.

Before that, India had seen some of the most inane judgments on rape. A former Chief Justice was quoted as stating that a victim should be allowed to marry the rapist, a throwback to some medieval practice. The Bombay High Court actually reduced punishment for a man convicted of sodomising a 10-month-old girl baby, accepting his contention that he lost control over himself as he was living away from his family! Click here for the full story. Panchayats have let off rapists with punishments like five shoe smacks, and small fines, sending a message that rape is not a big crime.

And now, we have these statements by men from a party dominant and in power in one of the most backward states in the country: Uttar Pradesh. The state performs poorly on all social indicators like maternal mortality, child sex ratio, age at marriage, nutrition for women, life expectancy, education and workforce participation, and a rising crime graph.

It is important for women to feel secure in the knowledge that they matter, that any injustice done to them will be dealt with, that they are not second class citizens but enjoy the same status as men in the country, in society and in their families. Only then will there be progress.

  

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You might like to read an earlier article by me in The Tribune -

Violence most foul

And an earlier post - More on the warped mindsets of judges

The Delhi Bar Council must act

Really glad that the Delhi Bar Council is taking a serious view of the utterances by defence lawyer A P Singh on the 23-year-old victim in the December 16 gangrape case in which she lost her life. The lawyer for two of the convicts is reported to have said, "...if my daughter was having premarital sex and moving around at night with her boyfriend, I would have burnt her alive. I would not have let this situation happen. All parents should adopt such an attitude."
A few questions for him - 1. Is there anything called 'adulthood' in his lexicon? The woman was an adult, free to choose who she wanted to be with, go out with.
2.Does the fact that a woman is out at night with or without a man, give the right to men who come across her to rape her?
3. Why hasn't he made such statements about the men who raped? Were they habitual rapists? Did they indulge in pre and post marital sex? Why is this not being talked about?
4. He would have burnt his daughter alive, he says. What would he do if his son indulged in premarital sex? Boast that he had arrived? Is finally a man?
5. As a lawyer he is extolling parents to kill their daughters. What is wrong with this man?
6. Is he actually advocating that girls be locked up, not allowed to go out so that such situations do not happen? As a lawyer, instead of advocating basic human rights, he is actually preaching that theto freedom of movement, the right to decide who to be with etc etc are curtailed!

I am waiting to see how the Delhi Bar Council will act.

To see the growing frustration of women with the judicial and police systems, watch this video, where a woman hits out at her molester. 

The long lonely battle

For the raped and their families, it is always a lonely long battle, often with no closure in sight. Any wonder then why girls and families do not come out to file rape cases.
Click here to read the plight of a young girl who was raped at the age of eight, and now eight years later, still awaits justice. She has had to drop out of school because of the taunts. She has no friends and she faces a lonely bleak future. Her father was accused by the rapist of filing the rape charge to get a paltry amount of Rs 1200. And in its order, the Bombay High Court has observed that it was possible that a father had accused a relative of rape to extract a petty amount in the range of Rs 1200! 

A three-year-old this time

New Delhi: A three-year-old girl was drugged and raped by the husband of a playschool owner in Delhi, police said Thursday. The accused has been arrested. Click here to read further.


The depravity never stops. Another case, this time a three year old raped in Delhi. What is wrong with these men? Have they lost all control over themselves?

Another gangrape in Delhi, how will we act?

My prayers are with the 23-year-old physiotherapist who was gang raped in a moving bus, beaten with a blunt object, stripped and pushed out of the vehicle and left to die on the road in Delhi on December 16. Her friend, who was accompanying her, was also beaten up and thrown out of the bus. The young woman is battling for her life. I hope she recovers to see justice done to her.

Such cases have become the norm in the city. They are just happening so often. And it is spreading to other parts of the country. In this blog a lot has been said about this societal illness that grips Indian society today.

On the television show, Newshour, last night, Arnab Goswami repeatedly asked if women in Delhi feel safe. He wanted women to call in. There was just one woman caller from Delhi. What can the women in Delhi say? It has been said just so often - Delhi is extremely unsafe and unfriendly to women. As a woman who has grown up and lives in this city, I say - A woman always feels insecure in Delhi. Never mind the fact that we have a woman for a chief minister, and many women occupying important and high posts as ministers and in the bureaucracy.

For the rot is in the minds of the society. (Check out this story) It is the whole way in which  women are viewed that translates into their inhuman treatment. Killed by parents in the womb when they discover that the foetus is female; neglected as a girl child (the best the family can afford goes to the boy and it is the leftovers for the girl); made to feel like an object, whose sole purpose in life is to be a good wife and daughter-in-law;  treated shabbily by the law-enforcing agencies, so badly that she is scared to enter a police station to even complaint. And if she does, the custodians of law may misbehave with her. Lax laws and judgements that make a mockery of her plight.

Delhi, overrun by men from areas where the khap panchayats rule, by classes that have no value for a female life, it is no wonder that India's capital can be called The Rape Capital. A couple of rape cases are reported everyday. Many, many must be going unreported.

What should be the punishment for the rapists? I will not say "Let the law take its course", for justice in India like its law enforcers have shown scant respect for women. Cases take years to be tried and then the accused cannot be brought to book as the police often fails to properly record the case and collect evidence. And even when they do, the judge may take a warped view and let the acused off. So the message society gets - It is okay to misbehave with a woman! That is how we show our manhood!

So what should be done? The women of the city and concerned citizens have to step in. Shame the rapists. Picket in front of their houses. Let everyone know who they are. Demand that they be thrown out of their jobs, ensure that if they are unmarried, no one ever marries their daughter to them, ever. A convicted rapist should be debarred from a government job for the rest of his life. And private organisations pressurised not to employ them ever. This can be ensured by women's groups and neighbours. The punishment meted out by the society should be a deterrent in itself. The way things are in India today, only the society can act. Only it can ensure that the rapists never live in peace.

Some earlier posts on the issue in this blog -
Justice dispensers - Who will make them see sense?

Rape fastest growing crime in India

One terrible story that ended well

This morning I read about a father and an uncle trying to bury a little sick girl alive because they wanted a male child. A tantric had told them if they did that, the father would get a healthy male child. It never fails to amaze me  what Indians can do, even kill their girls, in their quest for a son. This severe attachment to the son manifests itself often in exercising more control over him, over his wife, keeping the couple under scrutiny lest the son is led 'wayward' by the daughter-in-law and hence out of their control. Being a son in India has tremendous advantages,  but I am sure it comes with a lot of baggage. That is one reason why many Indian men never grow up. They remain mama's boys forever! But that is matter for another post.

Talking about killing your own baby girl. Here is another heart rending story of a girl whose father tried to kill her. But she survived, thanks to her maternal grandparents. And today she is working for the cause of women in rural Maharashtra. The terrible story has a happy ending. Thank God that there are some humans among us!