The place we are we living in, is it safe for women? If it isn’t safe then who is responsible for it – The women or The Men?

Every year large number of rape cases are seen and heard. We as citizens of the country are ones to be blamed for it, as our silence has encouraged the culprits. Candle marches and protests after every rape-case will not change anything. It still gives the culprits a chance to move freely on the roads.

If serious steps and decisions were taken no pedophile /rapist would have mustered the courage to attack a woman. Where is our humanity? We react, discuss and then close the issue and blame the women for what happens with them. No corrective action is taken to stop such incidences.

Recently, a girl from Haryana was abducted from her house; she was raped and then left to die, with a wooden rod that was inserted in her private parts. The post-mortem confirms rape and torture, further telling that 16cm of the stick was found inside her- that damaged her uterus and intestines. According to the doctors, the victim died due to the torture perpetrated by inserting the wooden stick into her private parts.

The courage of the rapist would not have reached such heights if there were stringent laws passed against this crime. Can we blame this 6-year old child for this crime?

The Panchayats and the decision-making authorities do not take any action, that’s the reason these crimes are still on the go. Most of the cases are not reported, and those that are, the decision are pending for years and years and the culprits roam freely.

Who is supposed to act here?

India’s regressive attitude towards sexual violence came into headlines last year as the political establishment reacted to the news of Nirbhaya’s gang rape in the national capital. “Women should not go out alone late at night, “This was the final conclusion! The attitude of the police force was documented, when reporters recorded their conversations with thirty Delhi police officers who blamed women for being raped, naming “everything from fashionable or revealing clothes to having boyfriends to visiting pubs to consuming alcohol to working alongside men as the main reasons for instances of rape.” They had argued, for example, “in truth, the ones who complain are only those who have turned rape into a business.”

Rape culture and its tendency to blame victims did not come out of nowhere. Various legal systems have engaged in it for centuries.

Rape is incredibly common (about one in five women experience sexual assault), and false reports are rare (2 to 8 percent). Therefore, if a woman comes forward about being assaulted, she is probably telling the truth!

However, our tendency as a society is to assume the opposite — that any explanation other than rape, however implausible, must be the correct one. Did she willingly go? Was she literally unconscious? We often do not want to do the work of re-evaluating our personal heroes, of accepting that a powerful man, who is a pillar of the community, or a world-renowned artist, or even the leader of the free world, could secretly be a monster. It can be any person around you. You never know!

People do not believe victims of sexual assault because it’s simply easier not to. Nevertheless, what is in the case of a 6-year old innocent? Is there anyone to fight back and take a major change? Do u think the rapist is still in any kind of fear?

Only if we as a collective society came to a better decision than not accepting the truth, or blaming the innocent, the brutality of such cases would not have gone so far.