Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles The cluttered crush of suburban Delhi. Its rooftop lines strung with vibrant freshly washed saris conceals its dark squalid secret. This city is the rape capital of India. Here, women live in fear of sexual violence so extreme and so common that one shudders to think what each new day's headlines will bring. Gang rape, acid attacks, murder by poison, strangulation or fire and most of the predators just get away with it. In Delhi's outskirts, an urban village where one night in March, a family's rooftop terrace was the scene of a frenzied attack. A young local man broke into the house, seized, raped and then violently murdered a 15-year-old girl. He'd allegedly been stalking for months. The girl's parents cannot bring themselves to even use the word, rape. Their lives they say have been totally destroyed. Her mother heard screaming at 2:30 a.m. after the rape, came a killing. He killed my daughter without any mercy. He killed my daughter torturously. He attacked her with a knife here. He slashed her leg, he hit her on the head from behind with a brick and everything came out. It was merciless. "Mummy," she screamed, "he's burning me alive." "Mummy, he threw kerosene on me." "Mummy, my head is bleeding." The teenage girl died two days later, she had burns to 90% of her body. I had so many hopes for my child. She used to say, "Dad, I'm going to study this and become this or that." She had so many aspirations. She wanted to be a doctor. She would tell us her dreams. We keep remembering these things while we are eating, while we're sleeping, when we are just sitting down, when it's school time. Her alleged killer was arrested and is now on remand awaiting trial. His family still lives in the neighborhood. The official statistics reveal that across India, a woman is raped every 15 minutes. Around 40,000 rapes a year are reported. But such is the stigma that most are thought to go unreported. Women who've been raped are made to feel shame. They're ostracized and rejected for marriage and violent rapes apparently (are) on the rise. We want justice. We want justice. We want justice. Three years ago, there were nationwide protests and much soul searching, following the horrendous gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old Delhi student in late 2012. Her parents named her as Jyoti Singh. The ordeal was so prolonged and so brutal that India was sickened. The country caught in a global spotlight of shame. Women demanded they be better protected. It felt like a watershed moment. Of the six men convicted, four were sentenced to death. Another gang member killed himself and one was a juvenile. He served three years and has already been freed. Supreme Court is now hearing Jyoti's rapists final legal appeal. Although the number of reported rapes across India and here in the capital has dramatically increased since Jyoti Singh's gang rape and murder. It's likely that the main reason for this is that the uproar surrounding her case gave more women more confidence to report sexual assaults. Amendments to criminal law have also made it incumbent on police and judicial authorities to take firm action faster. New laws prescribe longer, harsher sentences including the death penalty for rape. The age at which you could be tried for rape as an adult has been reduced to 16, but the wheels of Indian justice turn slowly and years can go by before sentencing. Jyoti Singh's parents have not recovered from what they call their catastrophe. They broke Indian law by publicly naming their daughter. The identities of women who have been raped are required to stay secret in an effort to reduce the stigma. It's just a fact that daughters are close to their dads. When she was young, she would fall asleep on my chest and even when we moved her, she would come back. After what she has given, society is forever in her debt. Today, a female child is like a paper plate. You use her, crush her and throw her away. In Indian households, there is a big difference between boys and girls. As they grow up, the boys get it into their heads that no matter what they do, they can get away with it. Children should be taught at home that if a young woman is being harassed, you should protect them, not join in. India is the world's largest hypocrisy because for all the soul-searching over Jyoti Singh's rape and murder, this is a nation addicted to lavish and overtly sexual Bollywood movies, many of which stand accused of casting women as glamorous accessories and perpetuating what they call here rape culture. This is a girl who was coming back from school. Over the past two years, this Indian photographer has traveled the length and breadth of the country, meeting women who have been raped and with their permission, taking their portraits. She hopes this will help dispel stigma. You know, there is a question of suppression. There is a question of subjugation and how do you suppress a woman? Rape her. You know, doom her for life, shame her for life because shame is always associated with rape. But rape is just a crime. Why should shame be, you know, associated with rape? And why should the blame be on the woman? Why not the men? And if a woman is raped and she loses her virginity, why should she not be able to find a man and marry? You know, and why is her family treated as nobody? Why are they also blamed for it, along with the girl, along with the woman? This needs to change. Indian women are moving out of the shadows, though, and finding a voice in this man's world. And for that, many women think they are being punished. "Why?" they ask, "you wouldn't treat a goddess like that."
B1 rape raped india singh indian gang India's rape culture: the survivors' stories 20812 126 林宜悉 posted on 2023/11/16 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary