Outrage Over Rape in India

The sexual assault and torture of a five year old girl in New Delhi brought up past feelings of outrage over the poor execution of the Indian government to stop rape from being such a common crime.  The gang rape of a 23 year old medical student in December was what pushed the community of India to be outraged at the government claiming that they do not do enough to prevent rape.  A report released Saturday by the Asian Center for Human Rights said 48,338 cases of child rape were reported in India from 2001 to 2011. The number of cases reported annually more than tripled during that time, it said, to 7,112 in 2011 from 2,113 in 2001.  These numbers in themselves are staggering but the problem is since so many women are oppressed in India, many do not speak up when they are sexually assaulted so it is believed that the true number of rapes is much higher than what are actually said.  Many of the children being raped are very young and do not know how to express to the police or their parents what has happened to them.  The parents of the five year old girl said that the police offered her them $37 to keep quiet about the case to avoid being haggled by the media and population again for another rape.  In March, Parliament passed a law where the goal was to accelerate and improve the prosecution of rape cases but the police are so poorly trained and understaffed that it will be hard to get the rapists in the courtroom in the first place.  


Gardiner, Harris. "Rape of Girl, 5, Draws Focus to Child Assault in India." New York Times Apr 22 2013: A.3. ProQuest. 22 Apr. 2013 .

By:  Adam Sehr