Death by Rape: India's Horrific and Prolific Crime
Two weeks ago in New Delhi, India, a 23 year old woman on a moving bus was brutally gang raped. A crime so horrific because the victim's boyfriend was unable to intervene to prevent it. Six men have been arrested and the facts are disturbing: the public bus was nearly empty when the woman and her boyfriend got on. The six men no doubt eyed her and acted by a violent attack and a stripping off both of their clothes. The bus drove through the city for hours, even passing through police checkpoints!
The woman suffered many internal injuries so she would submit to the men taking turns. Her assailants beat her and inserted an iron rod into her body during the assault, resulting in severe organ damage. Just how much more can this be disgusting?
But, what about the bus driver? Why did he not stop the bus or act in some manner to get police attention as the bus moved throughout the city streets? This is unfathomable. She suffered a heart attack, a lung and abdominal infection and "significant" brain injury, according to the hospital. All because of the beating. Soon, her organs began to fail until she died.
The Indian public, mostly women, took to the streets to demand that the crime of rape in India to be taken seriously with stiffer penalties. Most rapes and other sex crimes in India go unreported and offenders are rarely punished, women's rights activists say. This incident occurred on Dec. 16. A global poll by the Thomson Reuters Foundation in June found that India was the worst place to be a woman because of high rates of infanticide, child marriage and slavery. A rape occurs every day in India and many police do nothing after it is reported because women are second class citizens in India. Last year alone, over 23,000 rape cases were filed.
With women entering the work place more and more in India, the government must act to make rape a serious crime with heavy penalties and insure police treated as such, which they currently dismiss as "the woman's fault".
