Minor Marriages

Every day as you sift through the headlines, you expect to get a quick glimpse of the general political, social and economic state of affairs in the country. But the most common headlines you end up seeing these days are reports of incidents that tell stories of horrendous rape cases & sexual assaults on women taking place all over the country. Even foreign tourists who have always been eager to visit our country and learn more about its culture and heritage are literally discouraged by the news reports on Indian rapes. But even then, do the real stories really come to light? Is there more to these stories that we never find out about?

16^th December Rape case: A shame for the entire nation!

The incidence of rapes in India showed a marked rise since the inhuman 16^th December (2012) Rape Case. It was an inhuman gang rape & murder of a Paramedical student aged just 23 yrs in Delhi, who was gang-raped in a bus when she was on her way back to home after watching a movie with a friend. When the four gang-rapists approached to harass her and begun their lewd behaviour, her friend who worked in a private firm protested and was thrashed badly with iron rod. After the girl was raped, her vaginal passage torn off with the iron rod and her intestines spilling out, she along with her friend were stripped and flung out of the bus to bleed on the streets. This horrific incident of the December 16^th Delhi Gang rape shook the entire nation and received a lot of media hype.

The naked truth revealed:

Not only this one incident, but numerous such brutal incidents that followed in a train after the Delhi rape case reflects one naked truth but a very significant one; i.e. the highest number of rapes in India occur in the Metro cities. The main reason for this is the huge influx of small town population especially women from small towns moving to the big cities to make more money and ending up in a horrible, poverty-stricken life. 

Has anyone ever wondered what the male psychographic behind these rapes is? Psychographic outlines of the men who assault the women in the metros reveal that they are seething with aggression and are often slaves to some kind of addiction, most commonly alcohol or narcotics. However, sometimes this aggression comes from the general attitude of Indian men to dominate females. When these small town girls come to the metro cities and start earning, some are successful – they work long hours and rise on the ladder of success; something most men cannot tolerate or accept. On the other hand, some aren’t so successful and work extra hard to prove themselves, often outshining their male counterparts, which again is unacceptable to a chauvinistic man.  

They feel these girls are intruders in their city, are posing threat to their manhood. They want to teach them a lesson; something that comes from the very core of their conservative nature that tells them a woman can never be better than a man, and they must show a woman that her true place is always beneath a man. Sadly, this aggressive attitude is heightened much when these men are under the effect of some addictive.

Lines blurred between what’s criminal & what’s not:

Recently the four men who raped the Delhi girl have been given a death sentence, though from some sections of the country debate is being raised on the punishment’s quantum as there are some who favour life imprisonment for the convicts. Actually, the horrendous manner in which this poor girl was raped & murdered makes one think that any punishment would fall less for the convicts. 

Today the line between what is ‘criminal’ and what is not has become blurred. Laws in India have a number of loopholes and due to legal deficiencies, non-criminals receive criminal punishments and the real ones are dealt with leniently. Also another way of putting this issue is that today it’s really unpredictable to read a man’s mind. Men with no prior criminal or sexual assault records are often the ones responsible for brutal sexual assault crimes. And as per law, a first time offender is usually given more leeway. 

Significant confessions made by the north Indian perverts: Look into the statistics

After the Delhi Gang rape incident, statistics were collected to see how much this evil of rape has ruined our country. It’s shocking that one out of every four men in Northern India confessed of committing or wanting to commit acts of sexual violence sometime or the other. According to 2011 Rape Statistics, out of 24206 cases of rapes that took place in the country, the maximum cases occurred in Northern India; i.e. about 6227 cases. In rural India too rapes occur, but the only difference is that the cases do not get such great media exposure as in the metros. The victims there are forced to marry their assailants to hush up the matter. In many cases, the illiterate rural women do not even realize that they are being raped!

It can be said that while media is trying its best to bring all rape and sexual assault cases to light so that justice can be served, in all earnestness we still only get a partial picture of the reality. We need to spend less time talking about it, and more time trying to find out WHY rape is becoming so common in India, so that we can find a real solution to the problem. 

The Wait

                                                                                    

 The Wait

Rape culture in India is thriving with each passing day and the rate of sexual violence on women has acquired the alarming scale of an epidemic where rapes, juvenile, gang-rapes and other types have become the news on front page in every newspaper. Not only news stories, but also the elaborate media coverage of these rapes occurring in the country telecasted on TV gives is enough to jolt us with a shock of terror every single time.  We shudder at the pain and ordeal of the poor woman who had gone through it; we are so very overwhelmed by their emotions which consist in sympathy for the rape victim and outrage & abhorrence for the perpetrator are out on the streets. And how do we show this reaction? Some will vent their grief and protest by lighting candles, holding March and doing their bit. But what follows next????

Yes, before the country can recuperate from the trauma of one ghastly rape, another takes place.

One Rape occurs & then India waits for yet another

Rape has become a ceaseless and everyday occurrence in India. After a rape case has been reported and received much media attention, the public frenzy that breaks out on it. But what when that is done with?  The country has no option but to resign and wait till the next rape happens. 

The lawmaking bodies of our country carry out a very dated and sluggish trial procedure for the accused and in most of the cases, it takes a lot of time for the final verdict to be announced. Heightened emotions of the people of our country however, have very recently galvanized the lawmakers into making some amendments in the anti-rape legislations. But there too countless loopholes have been found.

Rape in India is a vicious cycle

Once a rape occurs, you as a good citizen are shocked. Then you express your outrage, and then you protest by holding rallies, marches and so on. Next what happens is ‘Waiting’; you wait for some months to swish by and then another rape happens and the cycle goes on again  - you are shocked, express outrage, protest on streets. Where is the solution?

 In the midst of this hullabaloo on rapes in India, we often forget to take a deep introspective look at the Indian society as a whole. The root of all these gruesome horrific acts of violence against women lies in our society itself which is essentially a patriarchal society. So no matter how stingingly a critic writes a critique of this national crisis of rape, rapes in India will continue to occur until and unless the patriarchal domination of males of society on women is not controlled at the root level itself.

Want to change the society? Begin with your own homes

Can we change this?  Can this ‘Wait’ be over by starting the process of changing our mindset as a society, so that the Rape Culture of India is thwarted? Yes we can. What we need to change is our outlook and that can begin right from the familial setup itself.

1.  We have to teach our sons and daughters to think differently; i.e. right from their childhood we should inculcate in them a spirit of gender equality. Discriminating between sons and daughters and giving sons more importance than daughters should be shunned and they should be encouraged to think that they are equal in all respects.
2.  Even the young generation should raise their voice against the patriarchal thoughts of elders like the one in which many elders often assert that the bride of the house or ‘bahu’ has to keep the pallu drawn over her head always and never show her face to any other men other than her husband or she is always duty-bound to serve her in-laws no matter how tired she is after all the household chores etc
3.  In many Indian homes still today countless male-dominated practices are followed. We need to discourage those. Some examples of such practices are: women of the house cannot eat prior to the male members, the women need to handle all household chores and duties alone even if they have a job, the women have to get up early in the morning before their husbands do and cook food for their husbands and children timely without a single helping hand etc, women are duty bound to serve their husbands in any way without ever being asked for their opinion or wish on the matter etc.

Only if we make these small changes on the home front, can we can surely expect some big positive change in the society in the near future.

A Sexually Abused Society

                                                                     

A Sexually Abused Society

No matter how hard the society of India tries to sweep the serious issue of sexual violence on women under the carpet, the alarming rate of increase of such cases is indicative of the fact that something is seriously amiss here. We are typically a male-dominated society, and it isn’t uncommon for stories of gruesome violence against women loom large in media almost every day. The angry outrageous mobs hold rallies, try campaigning, and even engage in shrill slogan hurling, but the very next day another woman is sexually abused. 

So has anybody ever wondered what’s actually wrong with our society?  Why are the men so hell-bent on exploiting women sexually?  

‘Sex’ clad in enigma

The roots of this problem lie in the way Indian society treats the question or subject-matter of sex. Our society has created a far reaching mantle of enigma around sex and it is often considered a ‘hush-hush’ affair. The society puts a restriction on discussing sex in public; till date sex education has not found a place into the school syllabus in the remote parts of India. 

The question here is that when ‘Sex’ is the biological need of every man and woman, just like any other biological needs like hunger, thirst, respiration etc, why should there be so much enigma surrounding the subject-matter that makes people so inquisitive about trying to find out more? 

Until and unless this enigma is brushed aside, sexual crimes won’t reduce because males psychologically would want to explore the enigma by ravishing the woman’s body; with or without her consent. And it’s really strange why India keeps the subject of sex clad in enigmas, because if you take a look at the erotic sculptures in temples like Khajuraho or Konark or read Vatsyayana’s Kamasutra, you would think that this country should have had a much progressive and open outlook towards ‘Sex’.

Indian Society empowers men with the decision-making power in sexual intercourse

Our society with its patriarchal setup always keeps the man on the top, while woman is expected to show complete obeisance to the man. In the familial setup too, the wife has to suffer the same tyranny of patriarchy where she has to silently serve the husband. Sexual intercourse, which should have been a matter of mutual love-filled intimate session between a husband and wife, is not always so between most Indian couples. There too the man has all the power to take the decision regarding the intercourse and his wife has no option but to go along or else their marital life may be at stake. What empowers the man is none other than his upbringing in this patriarchal society. 

A look at some statistical figures

Roughly 60% of women in the urban region indulge in sex just to finish it off, or simply because their husbands want it. However, in rural India, this percentage may go up to 70%-80%. 

This statistics is alarming because it shows how the women of our country are losing interest in ‘sex’. 

Probably most never had any interest in sex at all, because for them it never was something from which they could derive pleasure, but yet another way to serve their husbands. 

As for as the urban women are concerned, the reason for this decline in female libido of the married women is probably the way husbands continue to trample their individuality day after day and asserting their own supremacy over them, whether in the sexual life or even beyond it.

Is our society sexually abused?

It wouldn’t be wrong to say that the Indian society is a sexually abused one - perverted males feel they can rape women on streets and husbands feel comfortable raping their wives within the four walls of a bedroom. 

The only difference here is that you can expect the media to hype cases where the rapist was accused, for the helpless wife merely wreathes in pain and sobs silently, but cannot share her misery with anyone because that’ll bring disgrace to her own family, her own husband. 

Is it time our society changed its outlook towards SEX and accepts it for what it really should be – an act of pleasure where both individuals engaged are equal participants in mind, body and soul?

Sex Trade-A Boon or a Bane

                                                                   

Sex Trade-A Boon or a Bane

A woman’s body has always been an object of desire for men. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that there has emerged a special segregated class of women in the society, who offer their bodies to men for sexual relationships in exchange of some cash and make a living out of it. They are called sex workers or more commonly - ‘prostitutes’. 

Sex trade and prostitution is nothing new in our country. It’s rather an old wine sloshed into the new bottles because this tradition of women offering their bodies for money had existed since the times of the Kings of Ancient India who splurged money on tawaifs or courtesans and spent countless nights living their sexual fantasies in the company of these women. Today we get to hear new terms like ‘sex trafficking’, ‘flesh trade’, ‘call girls’ ‘red light areas’ and so on, but the basic concept remains the same.

The question here is – is it a boon for these women who are often illiterate to be able to make money out of selling their bodies and sometimes even their soul? Or is it a bane, because these women could have probably found more respectable ways to earn money had sex trade never existed? Is it a boon which keeps the lechers restricted to the brothels or a bane which will hamper the progress of women as individual identities?

Sex Trade: Why are women’s bodies on sale but not those of males?

In reality, sex trade usually refers to the trade of women’s bodies for sex and not that of men.  It has become a source of income for many women; most women happily don’t go into this kind of a business. If we delve into their past, this becomes more obvious. When a male visits a sex worker, his main target remains to make the most of the money he has paid to the worker while booking her for the night or say for few hours. He remains insensitive to her feelings and ravages her body and she is contract bound to give him what he wants in the fear of being dropped out of job by the brothel’s owner. 

So this sex trade is undoubtedly a trade of the woman’s body where a woman has to kill her feelings, withstand pain as part of her job and allow the brothel owner to do business with her or rather trade with her body by sending customers to her bed whom she entertains mechanically for money. 

T.S Eliot’s Preludes manages to say it right: “You tossed a blanket from the bed/You lay upon your back and waited/You dozed and watched the night revealing/The thousand sordid images”

Legalizing Sex Trade: Pros & Cons

Sex workers are fighting throughout the country to legalize sex trade and many NGOs are coming forward to uphold their cause. Legalizing of sex trade, however, is a much debatable subject. It has its own pros and cons. 

If sex trade is legalized, sex workers will no longer be considered a minority; legalization will allow them to gain a wider social perspective by means of quantifying themselves but many of them also seek for an intellectual recognition in society far beyond the mere flesh. Many of them come with brains, have an intellectual bent of mind which unfortunately no one sees apart from their body and mere legalization cannot wipe the stigma that society puts on them. 

Legalization of sex trade, however, can restrict the criminalizing of sex trade and can also secure the future of sex workers by pulling some governmental benefits and claims in their favour.

Sex Trade: If legalized, will it be a boon or bane?

Whether Sex trade is a boon or a bane is a very relative question. Some poverty stricken women are earning a living through it. For them, perhaps it’s a boon because they have no other means to make a steady income. Many destitute girls are getting shelters and for them too it is a boon. 

But the grimmer side of it is exposed only when women & girls are kidnapped and forcibly brought into this profession. They are beaten up and forced to entertain customers. Also it becomes a bane when the sex workers while practicing their profession contract some dangerous life-taking sexually transmitted disease like AIDS or get pregnant and go through horror stories of blotched abortions and no one is ready to take their responsibility. In such situations legal backing is indeed needed. 

If sex trade is legalized, these women might have better rights and maybe even a better quality of life. But one darker side of legalization is that once these women become legalized sex workers, they might have to forget their individual identity as woman!

Are Indian Men More Attracted To And By The Concept Of Sex Than In The West?

Incidences of violence and sexual assault against women in India have been on the rise lately. Pinning down the cause for these and thwarting such incidents in the future is very important. 

Recently, the gang rape of a 23 year old psychotherapy student left the nation in shock and now the rape of a minor, who is just 5 years old, has appalled the country. One statistic has even pointed out that a female gets raped every 22 minutes in India. Then, eve teasing, acid attacks, dowry deaths and marriages of minors are also common in the country. Actually, the Asian Center for Human Rights has stated that the number of child rape cases have increased by more than three times between 2001 to 2011.

After recording women’s views, it was found that 95% of the women from New Delhi stated that they did not feel safe in public places. Also, about 75% of the men agreed with this statement made by majority of the female population in New Delhi. Moreover, the trend of selective sex abortion in the country indicates that women are in danger even before they are born. Then, the practice of paying dowry for a girl’s marriage, although made illegal, is still being carried on. Other social prejudices against women are not educating them and favoring male siblings over the girl child.  

The authorities have tried to change things by passing laws that appear to be more stringent but will this be able to alter anything is the question everyone should probe into. Men in India have deep rooted notions, beliefs and conceptions about women and sex. Getting to the majority of the population, a huge chunk of which is illiterate and bordering on the poverty line, is also a huge challenge. Not only is there a need to increase awareness about women’s issues but men also need to be sensitized on the subject. Some experts have even stated that things like female infanticide and marriage of underage girls suggests that a girl’s life isn’t valued in the country.

To change stereotypes about sex and attitude of men towards women, campaigns need to be executed at a grass-root level. Conventional and long established perceptions towards women have to change. For example, men shouldn’t judge a woman’s life choices or pass an opinion on any of their decisions such as the clothes they choose to wear. Women should also be encouraged to speak out in cases involving domestic violence and molestation.

The conservative mindset in India is very strong. So, it becomes difficult to even make people understand about women’s rights and the prejudices against them in the country. Most people just take such bigotry and bias for granted and consider it to be a norm. Many activists have also said that the falling number of women as compared to the number of men is the root cause of the issue. The number of men who are unable to find a suitable bride in the country is quite substantial.  So, educating and sensitizing the male population in India is a pressing need.