Rape poster
After the Delhi assault, more rapes had been reported by Indian media, which would have usually been left out. These attacks drew public attention to the whole situation of how women are treated in India.
Recent incidents in India
Some latest attacks reported in media include already mentioned Delhi incident of student and her male friend who were lured into the bus and had been repeatedly assaulted by six men. The student died in the hospital two weeks later from internal injuries. Protesters seek to get rapists hanged or at least castrated. The trial has been held behind closed doors after chaotic scenes in an earlier hearing. Thousands of people demand legal and policing reforms to curb sexual violence in the country.
Just four weeks after the assault, similar rape had been reported in Punjab state, where a 29-year old woman was travelling to her village on a Friday night. She was the only one passenger in the bus and the driver refused to stop at her destination despite her begging to do that. The bus driver took her to a remote farmhouse where he and the conductor were joined by five friends who all took turns raping the woman throughout the night.
Another rape victim, a 16-year-old girl who had set herself on fire after being supposedly raped, died from injuries at a hospital.
Indian police are also investigating another incident of 32-year old woman, who was sexually assaulted by unidentified men in an orchard between train stations. Details of the case are still unconfirmed.
Delhi’s victim’s mother said that the rapists deserve to die and her daughter told her that the youngest of suspects had participated in the most brutal aspects of the rape. There had been calls to change Indian law so juveniles, committing dreadful crimes could face the death sentence. Indian authorities had proposed a range of measures to improve safety which includes more CCTV cameras in city centres and “gender sensitisation” lessons at schools.
According to official statistics, one rape case is reported on average every 20 minutes in India.
A 17-year old girl was shot dead by a drunk man last November after she told him not to urinate against her front door. Another such case was reported back in 2009 when a 22-year-old man was shot dead by a guard at a petrol station in Delhi after urinating nearby. Urination in public is common in Indian cities where there a few public toilets. Campaigns had very little impact on the issue.
"So women are only viewed as sex objects" - Vibhuti Patel
The situation intensity between sexes is shocking in India as hundreds of thousands of female infants and even foetuses are killed each year just because they are not male. What is more, in 2011, one pool revealed that over 65% of those surveyed Indian men thought women deserved to be beaten sometimes and that women should tolerate violence in order to keep family together.
A 2011 survey of gender equality by the Washington-headquartered International Centre for Research on Women revealed that one in four Indian men have committed sexual violence at some point in their lives and one in five has forced his partner to have sex with him, which are far higher rates than the five other countries surveyed.
Vibhuti Patel, a women's rights activist, told the Times of India: "In India, the age-old code of conduct has been to keep men and women separate. So women are only viewed as sex objects.”