Tag: rape

What is Considered Rape?

“Silence does not mean yes. No can be thought and felt but never said. It can be screamed silently on the inside. It can be in the wordless stone of a clenched fist, fingernails digging into palm. Her lips sealed. Her eyes closed. His body just taking, never asking, never taught to question silence”

Amy Reed

I came across a post on Feminist’s Instagram.

This post struck a nerve that no other post ever did. Mainly because whoever this person (thedarkchocolatedandy) is, didn’t insult anyone, nor did they try to persuade anyone to believe them. All they did was point out how humans are different than animals and also that women aren’t a piece of meat.

I decided to make a post on what crosses the line from being intimate to being considered rape. I am not sure how comfortable I am with men and most women not knowing or understanding what rape is and who the assailant is, and also that no reason is justifiable for rape, however, I wanted to make it clear and give no one who reads this an opportunity to claim they were unaware.

Take this post as a guide to know what is rape.

What is Consent?

The general definition of consent is to allow or permit for something to happen.

Consent in terms of sex or intimacy refers to agreeing to have sexual intercourse with someone and letting them know about it. It also includes finding out where the other person stands.

Consent is restricted and comes with thick boundaries. A person may consent to sexting, but not actually having sex, or vice versa.

Consent could also be restricted to just being physical and not actually having sex.

Take for instance the Netflix Original, “GUILTY”. A beautiful movie loudly stating that consent doesn’t give permission for anything and everything. Tanu (Akansha Ranjan), accuses VJ (Gurfateh Singh Pirzada) of raping her. Throughout the movie everyone had numerous reasons to tag her a fibster, they refused to believe her, they ridiculed her, said she was asking for it. The biggest reason was that she was very into VJ and that she threw herself on him quite a lot. In the end it was revealed that she wanted to have sex with VJ. She was consenting to the sex. What she wasn’t consenting to is being watched by VJ’s friends and being recorded. She didn’t consent to being sexually assaulted while the two bystanders ridiculed her and lead VJ on.

This movie is an eye-opener and covers many reasons rape culture still persists in our society.

When do you NOT have Consent?

  • When a person is sleeping or unconscious
  • When a person is drugged or intoxicated
  • When you are threatening them
  • You use a position of authority or trust
  • Consent is withdrawn
  • When you ignore their NO, cries and physically being pushed away
  • When you have consent for only one form of sexual act and not the other
  • When they are pressured

Verbal Consents:

  • Yes
  • I am sure
  • I want to
  • Don’t stop
  • Go on
  • I still want to
  • I want you to
  • I’m ready
  • Yes please
  • I am comfortable
  • I want to continue

Verbal Disagreements:

  • No
  • Stop
  • I don’t want to
  • I am not sure
  • I don’t think so
  • Please don’t
  • Please stop
  • This makes me uncomfortable
  • I want to stop
  • I don’t want to continue
  • This feels wrong
  • Maybe we should wait
  • Diverting the topic
  • I want to, BUT
  • Saying Yes fearfully

Non-Verbal Disagreement:

  • Pushing Away
  • Pulling Away
  • Crying
  • Avoiding Eye Contact
  • Silence
  • Shaking their head no
  • Standing/Lying motionlessly
  • Looking Scared
  • Not removing their own clothes

What is Rape?

Sexual Assault refers to any form of sexual contact or behaviours without explicit consent by the victim. Attempted Rape, Unwanted touching, forcing a victim to perform sexual favours, oral or penetrating penis or any other object.

The Medical definition of Rape is, “Forced sexual intercourse, and/or forced sexual assault between two or more people is considered rape. Rape may be heterosexual or homosexual. Rape involves insertion of penis or any inanimate object into a person’s vagina, anus, mouth. Rape also includes any other sexual acts.” Force here doesn’t just refer to physical force; blackmail, psychological manipulation to coerce someone into being sexually active is also considered rape.

Sexual intercourse between an adult and a minor is legally considered statutory rape. The adult is found guilty even if the minor was consenting.

Intimacy with a minor wife is considered rape in India.

Marriage is not a licence for either partner to force an unwilling partner to have sex. Marital/Spousal Rape is now recognized and is a criminal offence.

Date Rape, sexual assault followed by the victim being drugged or psychologically manipulated.

Intoxicated Rape is when the victim is drunk and unconscious, not in the state to make a sober choice.

Consent taken by threatening the victim or victims loved ones is also considered rape.

Gang Rape occurs when a group of people rape a person.

Rapes in prisons and jails by other inmates or prison officials is also an offence, often overlooked and unreported.

Serial Rape is the rape committed continuously over a relatively long time period.

Payback/Punishment Rape is when a person rapes another out of spite.

War Rapes are rapes committed by soldiers during war as a way to force prostitution and slavery to insult an entire country.

Deceptive Rape is the rape that occurs when the rapist rapes a victim by gaining consent by misleading them.

Corrective Rape is a hate crime where homosexuals, trans and queer individuals are raped hoping to “correct” them. To force them to “turn” heterosexual.

Custodial Rape is the rape occurred in custody of police, hospitals, old age homes, orphanages or any other employee of the state.

Prostitution Rapes are rapes where rapists force prostitutes to have sex without paying them for their services, to inflicting pain and torture (cigarette burns, slapping, choking).

Exchange Rape is the rape where sexual favours are exchanged for money, rent, food, drugs or any other resource.

Punitive Rape is when rape is used to punish or discipline someone. Usually by an abusive teacher, parent, Religious leader, or a peer.

Incest Rape is when a victim is raped by family member.

Consenting Rape is when a consenting partner withdraws consent, but the rapist doesn’t stop and continues to get sexually intimate. Consenting rape is also when the victim consents, but isn’t completely “into it.”

Rape Culture

Rape Culture refers to the sociological concept of normalizing rape, and blaming victims for dressing or acting provocatively. A few illustrations of Rape Culture include:

  • Blaming the victim
    • She dressed provocatively
    • She shouldn’t have been out so late
    • She is already sexually active, who says she didn’t want it?
  • Boys will be boys
  • Tolerating sexual harassment
  • Assuming only immoral women get raped
  • Making degrading jokes about women
  • Associating “manhood” as dominant and sexually aggressive
  • Associating “womanhood” as submissive and sexually passive
  • Offensive memes
  • Not believing people who speak out
  • “You haven’t been raped yet, so chill”
  • Slut-shaming and congratulating men on “scoring”
  • Calling young women gold diggers when they marry old and older woman, cougars
  • Objectifying Women
  • Associating Rape to Victims character and not the rapists

Rape Culture is the direct consequence of toxic masculinity. The heavily patriarchal world teaches and forces boys and men to be strong and exert “masculinity” in the form of dominance, arrogance and sexual and physical aggression.

The only solution is to fight patriarchy.

Support for Those in Distress

The National Commission for Women, provides a set of helpline numbers, legal aid, and counselling contacts.

Marital Rape:Culture or Consent?

Patriarchy, often perceived as a “culture” by the Indian society, strives to be protected at all costs, even if that means to strip off the “vulnerable”, of their basic human rights. All concepts that threaten this so-called culture, are categorised as “western concepts”, and are further refused to be acknowledged. Living in denial and refusing to acknowledge the problems, does not mean that they don’t prevail in the Indian Society. In fact, this means that a significant chunk of the society is not ready for the particular problem, but, that does not in any way, give them the right to disregard other people’s safety and security, just because their’s is intact.
One such controversial concept is ‘Marital rape’, often perceived as an oxymoron. Although, ‘rape’ has been clearly defined by most of the criminal codes of almost every country recognised by the United Nations, yet the understanding is rather subjective varying on the culture and relationship of the accused and the victim.  As Estelle B. Freedman points out in Redefining Rape,”At its core, rape a legal term that encompasses a malleable and culturally determined perception of the act…The meaning of rape is thus fluid”. One such factor is ‘marriage’, which supposedly rules out the possibility of forceful sexual conduct upon a wife, since a wedlock provides  immunity to the husband, sociologically as well as on legal grounds in 10 nations of the world.
Well, one of the most difficult challenge faced by people opposing marital rape, is the lack of acknowledgment of this sin. The surprising fact is that this is probably the only crime , where the victim does not recognise her violation of the rights, because control of a woman’s body is foundational to patriarchy. As British jurist, Lord Mathew Hale, states that,”The husband cannot be guilty of rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife, for by their mutual consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband, which she cannot retract.” This orthodox thinking is deep rooted in our society and is a shame to our so-called judicial progress, because if we see the section 375 of the Indian Penal Code,1872, although it defines rape, yet there is an exception in the statute which states, that, ’Sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape.’

Arguments generally used to justify the non existence of this crime in the IPC, are that there are other sections like domestic violence and cruelty that protect the wives from the oppression and dominance.“there are other provisions that safeguards the rights of a wife, like domestic violence which covers cruelty, so why do we need another law? So greedy, these ‘feminists’ have become!”. This shows us the biggest problem in not recognising marital rape as a form of rape ,that is, the society is ready to accept the husband as an offender of  domestic violence, since the ‘anger issues’ are just unstoppable and ‘he is a man’, but are not ready to accuse the husband of rape of his own wife.Such beliefs are imbedded in notions such as the idea that a woman’s sexuality is a commodity that can be owned by her father or husband, the belief that what happens between husband and wife in the bedroom is a private matter, that a man is entitled to sexual relations with his wife, and that a wife should consensually engage in sex with her husband, thus making rape “unnecessary.” 

The ways in which marital rape is condoned varies cross-culturally. In India, Supreme court ruled in February 2015, that marital rape is not a crime.A government minister then told the parliament, that it could not be criminalised in India, since “marriages are sacrosanct”.(BBC News,2015). Like, in United States of America, although it is a criminal offence, yet a significant amount of attitudinal surveys show that Americans regard the rape of a wife far less than a similar assault by an acquaintance or a stranger. “Marital rape is a western concept, it is not possible in the Indian Society”, as stated by Maneka Gandhi, minister of women and child development, Ironical? It’s a crying shame, that people still have to be convinced, that there is ‘no difference’ between rape and marital rape. A wedlock, does not take away the bodily rights of a woman, she is still an individual and her rights must be protected. This mindset cannot be changed solely by judicial activism, but by educating men and women, and making them sensitive towards each others sentiments.

One of the ignored reason of the exclusion of this crime, is the anthropological aspect of research. As Gabriella Torres points out in her book, ’Marital Rape: Consent, Marriage, and Social Change in Global Context’, that first and foremost, this issue is not been given the level of public importance that it deserves. The  arguments for keeping the exemption have included, first,  keeping the marital relationship private,  second,  protecting husbands from vindictive wives, third, because it is nearly impossible to prove, and fourthly because a charge of rape would discourage reconciliation between husband and wife.

The reason for the less public attention given by the people to this inhuman and heinous act is that, the society is so blinded with culture and customs, that now the customs are not according to the behaviour of the people, but the behaviour is according to the culture and customs. This is where anthropologists come into power, since the society has nicely, adapted the crime to the custom, it’s important to understand what the culture or customary practice originally stated.There can be two possible scenarios, that is, one, culture does not state to violate any right, then society’s mindset can be changed with the right information regarding their culture  and second possible scenario is, if the culture succumbs to the violent and dominant ideology and even after reading the accounts of the victim, the dominance of the culture has a possibility, then it is high time we make a choice between ‘Culture or Consent’.

Lockdown:Still a Horror Show For Minor Girls

 While living within four walls in our house due to lockdown,everyone is having hard time adapting to the new normal of 2020. Everything has changed since the spread of a pandemic. India is  managing to revive the economy by following Online trend. Schools and Colleges have shifted to Online platform to complete work from home and attending online meetings, we have seen a huge change in our lifestyle due to lockdown. We have seen people indulging in their hobbies as well as people struggling to reach their home.

While world is glorifying the technological achievements as well as trying to mitigate the crisis, ironically women are still struggling to be recognized as human beings. Even in the situation of pandemic, the phase of increasing acceptability of human rights, the crime of rape is an accute and persistent problem in India.

Despite the national and international focus on women’s rights, women are still victimized largely in the Indian society. Cases of Rape and sexual violence/assault cases are still being reported in the time of lockdown. This article will be focusing on cases that have been reported recently.

The Odisha Tribal girl case

A 13 year old girl in odisha’s biramitrapur was reportedly gang-raped over 4 months at the local police station. The inspector in charge of the station was allegedly one of the perpetrators, and also forced her to terminate a pregnancy.

This is the second such case in Odisha over the span of 2 months. In may, A tribal woman was raped inside a police canteen in malkangiri district. She later died from her injuries.

Both cases are shocking reminders of the crimes against people belonging to Tribal communities and lower castes in our country.

In 2018, The NCRB recorded over 42,700 crimes against members of scheduled castes or Tribes. Women and children are the most vulnerable to these crimes.

Jayapriya Case

A 7 year old girl was brutally raped and killed by three unidentified men in Tamilnadu. The minor’s body was found in a shrub at the Anbal Village in the pudukottai district.

As per the prima facie evidence, she was last accompained by a neighbour who said that he was taking her to a nearby temple. Investigation is still going on. Neighbour is arrested on suspicion as he did not correctly answer in the police questions. Further investigation is under way.

The social media started trending #justiceforjayapriya to adress the concern of child rape and to seek justice.

Father-daughter Case

In the last three months, may cases have been reported of fathers raping their daughters across India. A 14-year-old girl was allegedly raped by her father in Tamil Nadu last week. A cab driver, the accused hails from Nagapattinam district, and was arrested by the area’s all-women police force . He raped and impregnated his minor daughter repeatedly until the mother discovered the horror and took action.

He has two daughters and according to the police, the entire family shares one room to sleep. A Times Now report said the survivor complained of stomach ache and vomiting to her mother and that’s when she was taken to the hospital for check up. She was discovered pregnant and later the mother found out that her father had been reportedly raping the girl for three months.

The accused has been arrested under the POCSO Act and is in judicial custody. As per reports the girl will be admitted to one of the government homes and after that she will be sent to the child welfare committee (CWC) for counselling.

EFFECTS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE/ASSAULT ON  SURVIVORS

The sexual violence leaves a multipled effect especially when it leads to pregnancy or when the violence is passed from one generation to the other. Only few survivors or victim actually report the offence and seek medical and legal support making  it difficult to determine the prevalence of child sexual assaults. It requires an empowered victim, a supporting  reporting environment and a responsive legal system to report such offences.

The most heinous of all crimes against women is rape. Rape is not merely an offence, but it creates a scar in the marrows of the mind of the victim. In fact, an act of rape is an attack on her individuality and creates a permanent dent causing irreparable loss to her life. In spite of the legislative measures adopted for protection of women, the intensity of rape offences has not been reduced in any country. Numerous factors are considered to be responsible for this deplorable prevailing scenario, such as, poverty, widespread illiteracy, lack of awareness, extensive economic dependence and unbridled cultural male domination, etc.        

LEGAL SYSTEM AND PEOPLE

Many are hoping for a thorough reform of India’s judicial system, police procedures, social norms, and laws relating to violence against women. These hopes suggest that government intervention and the creation of new institutions is necessary to protect women. The truth is that India’s laws and stated policies are actually adequate to safeguarding the rights of its citizens. The gap lies in their implementation.

If the protests do not lead to any legal changes in the short run, we should not consider them to have failed. The social norms that are being created right now as a result of this national and international dialogue will be the true legacy of the victim and her supporters. The protests are two steps forward for women, to hope for change in the environment, to seek acceptance in the society.

India announced that more than 50 helplines have been started across India to help women facing domestic violence during the ongoing lockdown. The helplines are run by police, women welfare departments and NGOs working for the rights of women, the official said. The domestic abuse national helpline number is 181 while women police helpline numbers are 1091 and 1291.

NEED FOR SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION

Humans by nature are not violent. They are social animals. It is the society that shapes their attitudes and beliefs that give rise to their aspirations. Centuries of patriarchy have conditioned men to believe in their superiority and to look down upon women as inferior beings. The cosmetic industry, media, entertainment even sports thrive on the objectification of women. We have songs comparing women to ‘Tandoori Murgi’, ‘coca-cola’ or ‘gud Ki dali’ beckoning men to consume them. The caste system is another slur on our culture and needs to be abolished. Lower caste women are raped with impunity by men belonging to higher castes. Pornography is the leading industry. Presenting women as saleable commodities, consumer culture is encouraged. Since women are reduced to mere bodies so they can be violated and ravished sans any guilt.

CONCLUSION

Laws alone cannot provide a solution for this problem. In the last decade, reporting has increased, FIR registration has been made mandatory in rape cases. We have gender-sensitive protocols for medical examination and recording of statement of the victim. Law provides for speedy investigations and fast track of trials in rape cases. What we need is better policing, making public spaces safer for women, ensuring round the clock surveillance of isolated areas and deployment of police at all strategic points. It is not harsher punishments that will deter. It is the fear of being caught and not being spared. A system that ensures that no accused can manipulate or manage to wriggle out of the clutches of law. A system that deals with rape cases expeditiously from arrest till the execution of sentence and no one is spared. The message should go out loud and clear that ‘no one is above the law’.  We need to prevent rapes from happening. Prevention and not punishment is the solution and that requires concerted efforts on part of all the stakeholders.

Every Individual must respect the value of social binding,social morals and social responsibility to secure social justice.

sources:

1.timesnews

2.thehindu

3.shethepeople

A SLAP TO HUMANITY -13 years old raped by police officer

Sexual assault has become a flashpoint in a much deeper political dispute over the ways in which Indian culture is changing as the country becomes more urban and less traditional. A sort of culture war has emerged. One aspect of that war: sexual assault has at times become a weapon used to police Indian women’s adherence to traditional social rules and, by extension, society’s adherence to traditional values. That has come with disturbingly institutionalized victim-blaming that, along with impunity for perpetrators, allows a culture of sexual assault to flourish.

When we talk about rape culture, we’re discussing something more implicit than that. We’re talking about cultural practices (that, yes, we commonly engage in together as a society) that excuse or otherwise tolerate sexual violence.

Rape is one of the India’s most common crimes against women. It is reported that at every 20 min, a woman is raped in India. The majority of reports reveal that female youth are vulnerable group for rape victimization. According to experts, only 10% of rapes are reported, and the conviction rate for rape cases is 24.2%

In the recent past, gruesome cases of sexual assault have surfaced from all corners of the country, including the abduction, gang rape, and murder of a young lawyer in Jharkhand; the rape and murder of a 55-year-old cloth seller in Delhi’s Gulabi Bagh neighborhood; and a teenager in the state of Bihar who was gang raped and killed before being set ablaze.

Recently ,a teenager was raped by a police officer in Odisha’s Sundargarh district. A police inspector in Odisha’s tribal-dominated Sundargarh district was suspended on Friday over his alleged involvement in the gang rape and subsequent abortion of a 13-year-old girl over a period of two months.

Anand Chandra Majhi, the inspector-in-charge of Biramitrapur police station in Sundargarh district, was suspended a day after a case was lodged against him and five other people, including a doctor, for the alleged gang-rape and abortion attempt.

The girl had come to witness a fair at Biramitrapur area on March 25 but it was cancelled at the last moment due to the lockdown. The girl failed to return home and was roaming near the bus stand when a police patrolling team saw her and brought her to the police station.

Inspector Majhi allegedly raped her at the police station. She was dropped at her home the next day.

However, she was called to the police station regularly and raped by the inspector and other police officials. The girl later got pregnant following which Majhi tried to abort her foetus.

The matter came to light after the child, who was seen crying outside the police station last week, was rescued by a local NGO and handed over to the district child protection officer who lodged a complaint with Raiboga police station and Six persons, including the inspector, doctor and the girl’s stepfather, have been named as accused 

Humans by nature are not violent. They are social animals. It is the society that shapes their attitudes and beliefs that give rise to their aspirations. Centuries of patriarchy have conditioned men to believe in their superiority and to look down upon women as inferior beings. The cosmetic industry, media, entertainment even sports thrive on the objectification of women

A system that ensures that no accused can manipulate or manage to wriggle out of the clutches of law. A system that deals with rape cases expeditiously from arrest till the execution of sentence and no one is spared. The message should go out loud and clear that ‘no one is above the law’.  We need to prevent rapes from happening. Prevention and not punishment is the solution and that requires concerted efforts on part of all the stakeholders.

HOW PHOOLAN DEVI BECAME A BANDIT QUEEN (part 1)

She belonged to a  poor rural family in Uttar Pradesh and was married at a very young age of 11 years with Puttilal Mallah. He was three times older to her, she tolerated endless beatings and sexual abuse by her husband. When the situation became intolerable, after several attempts she finally ran away and returned to her family. 

Starting of imprisonment 

After some time, Maya Din (her cousin), remembering the insult that he faced due to phoolan in childhood, went to the cops and accused her of stealing his belongings. The cops kept Phoolan for almost three days and abused her, and then let her go with a threat to behave better in the future and live peacefully without battling with her family or with anyone else. When she was released, her parents wanted her to return back to her in-laws as she turned sixteen, but they never accepted her. Somehow they took Phoolan, but she again returned to her parents(not virgin anymore). Her in-laws later stated that under any circumstances they will not take Phoolan back. Life as a Bandit was not at all easy. In 1789 she fell with a gang of Dacoits. Nobody knows whether she was kidnapped or her own insanity, she always regretted this juncture. The leader of the gang was Babu Gujjar, who raped, assaulted, and dehumanized her for three days. The second-in-command of the gang Vikram Mallah saved her as they both were from the same caste. Vikram Mallah killed Babu Gujjar due to a rape. The following morning, he became the leader of the gang. Though Vikram was married and so was she, they resided together. After a few weeks, their gang attacked the village of Phoolan’s husband. She herself dragged him on the road and left him almost dead with a note “older men not to marry young girls”. However, he outlived but with a permanent abdomen pain. After this incident as legally, he was her husband, villagers avoided his company due to the threat of the gang. She then learned using a rifle from Vikram and became a gang activist across the UP- MP border in Bundelkhand. Activities such as kidnapping for ransom, visiting villages looting wealthy upper-caste society were a part of spreading threat and caste discrimination. 

Phoolan’s tongue was actually a problem for every other gang member as the gang consisted of mixed caste members.

Vikram’s death.

 The trouble began within the gang itself resulting in Vikram and Phoolan standing on the same side and the rest of the gang members on the other as the majority of the gang later had Rajputs. Soon after a gunfight happened. Vikram and Phoolan escaped, yet they were later chased and Vikram Mallah was shot dead. Phoolan was taken to the Rajput-dominated village of Behmai by her, not so-called gang members, where she was locked, raped, and molested by gang members of upper-caste for a span of three weeks. They even paraded her uncovered throughout the village. Then she again managed to escape with the help of low caste villagers and gang members involving Man Singh. Later they became lovers and set up a new gang. 

Murders in Behmai

Revenge was in her blood, after the escape she returned back. She demanded to confront the one who was responsible for the assault but couldn’t find it. To spread fear she then took young men of the village and aligned them and shot 22 men. Every department tracked her but failed as she had the support of needy ones.

Vikram taught Phoolan, “If you are going to kill, kill twenty, not just one. For if you kill twenty, your fame will spread; if you kill only one, they will hang you as a murderer.” This motivated her to kill 22 men of the upper caste. 

She was assaulted so many times, didn’t give up, always came back for revenge. She has gone through every evil aspect including child marriage, rape, assault yet came to be fearless.