Sexual violence against women in India

[Raghav_12]

The reason for posting this article is not to downplay what is happening in India. We need some serious changes in our society regardless of what is happening abroad. The point is that the problem is widespread in even some developed countries. It's not just Delhi, it's not just India - women are suffering in the same way even in places we imagine as safe. I hope the protests in India infects these countries as well. It's time people stood up and confronted this evil, no matter what the country is.

Yes. Projection of India as rape capital of the world is misplaced going by the numbers those available to us. Another article in WSJ points out that US reports 3 times more number of rape cases than India for similar sample size of population, even after taking into account claims that in India only 1 out of 10 cases are reported. Not to say that our numbers are good by any measure, but global media pouncing on India on this issue is OTT. http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2013/01/02/are-women-safer-in-india-or-the-u-s/

Are Women Safer in India or the U.S.? In the aftermath of the death Saturday of a woman who was gang raped in New Delhi and the soul-searching itÃÔ sparked in India over the treatment of women some commentators are questioning whether sexual violence is really worse here than in other countries. But Indians working to make the country safer for women say pointing out that rape also is a concern in the U.S. and Europe is irrelevant to their fight. ŪtÃÔ a bad analogy, says Vrinda Grover, an Indian Supreme Court lawyer who has worked for two decades on womenÃÔ issues. Ūt just means thereÃÔ equal cause for concern everywhere. ItÃÔ certainly possible to find statistics that show India is not alone in facing a rape problem. Take this document from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. It shows 1.8 incidents of reported rape in India per 100,000 people in 2010 compared to 27.3 in the U.S. This kind of comparison, however, is misleading, Indian activists say. Sudha Sundararaman, general secretary of the All India Democratic WomenÃÔ Association, a nonprofit organization, says very few rapes get reported due to pressure from society to cover up abuses and the reluctance of police to register cases. Although she acknowledges itÃÔ hard to get hold of true statistics, Ms. Sundararaman estimates from her field experience that only about one in 10 rapes get recorded in India. That would make IndiaÃÔ reporting rate much worse than the results of surveys in the U.S. suggest. The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, or RAINN, a U.S. nonprofit organization, says only 46% of U.S. rape cases get reported to the police. That number comes from the U.S. Justice DepartmentÃÔ National Crime Victimization Survey. Indian activists say there are other reasons to believe the Indian numbers donÃÕ capture the extent of the problem. Indian law, for instance, doesnÃÕ recognize rape committed within a marriage. It doesnÃÕ count acts of oral sex as criminal rape. And it doesnÃÕ allow for rape of men. Another way to compare countries rape statistics is to look at conviction rates. IndiaÃÔ National Crime Records Bureau shows there were 24,206 reported rape cases in 2011. Of those that made it to court that year, which was not disclosed, 26% ended in convictions. In the U.S., RAINN estimates that just over half of rape cases that are prosecuted in the U.S. each year leads to a conviction, a much higher rate than in India. But, as Ms. Grover says, none of this number crunching makes DelhiÃÔ streets any less dangerous. Ms. Grover says she feels much safer on New YorkÃÔ subway system than on DelhiÃÔ buses, for instance. Activists are hoping the death of the 23-year-old student over the weekend will help improve public safety for women in India. TheyÃÓe pushing for changes to require police to register complaints by rape victims within a certain timeframe; for a broad sexual assault law that cracks down on other forms of widespread sexual assault, like groping; and for better policing to keep streets safer.