We have been discussing the epidemic of rape in India, including the grotesque recent gang rape of a woman on a bus who died from internal injuries. The attitude of Indian officials has ranged from the disgusting to the bizarre. Now we can add the rape of a Swiss 39-year-old woman who was gang raped and her husband beaten up after camping near a Hindu temple. A spokesman for Madhya Pradesh police department promptly said that the woman and her husband brought on the rape by camping in the wrong spot. This week a British woman fractured both legs and suffered head injuries after jumping from her hotel window to escape being raped by the owner.
Six suspects have been arrested in the northern state of Madhya Pradesh. The couple was cycling and camping around India and had stopped near the village of Jhansi. Around 10 pm, the men came to the camp, beat up and tied up the husband, and proceeded to gang rape his wife in front of him.
The spokesman for Madhya Pradesh police blamed the couple and said “No one stops there. Why did they choose that place? They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They would have passed a police station on the way to the area they camped. They should have stopped and asked about places to sleep.”
Police have recovered 5,500 rupees (£67), a laptop and a mobile belonging to the couple — strengthening the case even further. The men allegedly operate an illegal distillery near the crime scene.
Source: Independent
he’d be safe in harlem. might have to watch out about vegas though
http://www.ktnv.com/news/local/192108291.html
BarkinDog, the reason you think India is so much safer than Harlem is that you have probably never been gang-raped in India.
First, under Indian law, rape is a crime and it does not exclude certain states. In fact, I just read that the Indian Parliament passed law proscribing greater penalties for rape.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-21826247
In particular from the article:
Under the changes, the minimum sentence for gang rape, rape of a minor, rape by policemen or a person in authority will be doubled to 20 years and can be extended to life without parole.
Under the existing laws, a rapist faces a term of seven to 10 years.
It is not a defence to rape to look at the location of the scene or the clothing the victim is wearing. In this country there is a legal term known as the Rape Shield which prohibits cross examination and such of the victim as to their sexual reputation, dress, or certain behaviors.
Saying that the victim should have expected to be raped based upon their clothing or location is akin to declaring the victim deserved to be raped and it does not excuse the rapists.
This particular police spokesman out of India appears to share a brain with our own top dog lawman, Holder, as he defends Ortiz. Blame the victim.
bettykath, Thanks for great on-point article.
I agree with Flkermani above. I would also say that the When in Rome Do As The Romans adage is very appropriate in world travel. Westerners who prance around India or Saudi Arabia in their low cut tops and mini skirts are dumb as toast. I traveled with three Swedish women in Egypt and I had to admonish their dress code every day. When we rode out to the Pyramids they had the camels gawking. Later, they made a trip over to the states and I advised them to have at it. That was a mistake and I had to wrestle some gators off of em in a bar in New Orleans when their mini skirts were below the mini. And I was just a guide dog.
Time for a travel warning by the state department for India along with an interview with a couple of national news sites. Maybe the economic pressure from lost tourism and to protect our citizens might be some additional motivation to get the Indian gov’t to change its approach to rape, since it is apparent they have a problem from their own affairs but choose not to address it sufficiently.
I find it sad that people expect the cycling Swiss tourists to have had “perfect knowledge” about what specific areas to avoid and how they were to spot the boundaries of those areas. Who would have told them this? How would they have known precisely what was safe and not safe? Would the Indian Tourist Board have broadcast the presence of groups of ravaging criminals with warnings about how to avoid them? Sounds like a great PR campaign to bring in more tourists.
One can imagine the couple thinking camping on temple grounds would give them safety, irrespective of precisely where they were, from “anyone” wishing to rob, rape, maim, or kill them. Saying they “should have known” is like giving the thugs who attacked them a justification and a pass for doing what they do (kind of like “boys will be boys” – “thugs will be thugs”). It’s like saying after a woman is raped, “The woman should have known better than to have gone out after dark.”
Whenever I hear even a tinge of “blame the victim,” I think of the “Just World Hypothesis.” It posits that in this “just world” everything happens for a reason – nothing is random – and that one gets what they deserve. If they are harmed, it is because they deserved it; they did something negative or “bad.” This hypothesis makes the non-victims feel better and superior to victims. It makes them feel safer. While it happened to someone else, it couldn’t happen to them because they didn’t deserve it.
This isn’t a “just world.” Things do happen randomly and often there is no way to know what others think you should have known. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. On average, people rarely get what they “deserve,” whether it’s good or bad. “Justness” and “fairness” are human constructs to make us feel safer. They don’t exist in Nature.
bettykath,
excellent linked article.
Philip S. Zivnuska: They would have, of course rightly, spoken about how the poor rapists are now going to have their lives ruined!! /sarcasm
Rape is never good. We should fix the problem at home.
Patriarchy Dominates Media’s Steubenville Coverage
By Carl Gibson, Reader Supported News
19 March 13
n an eerie bit of foreshadowing, a 2011 skit from The Onion’s “Sportsdome” on Comedy Central predicted the Steubenville rape story almost to a T. In the satirical sports segment, done with emotional background music, reporters document the story of a student athlete who scored a record amount of points, “overcoming” the fact that he had raped someone the night before. The framing of the news segment is not about the irreparable damage to the victim, but how the young man courageously moved beyond four allegations of sexual assault to become a top scholar and athlete.
“It felt good to show people that I’m not just a rapist, I’m a basketball player first,” the athlete says.
Fast-forward to August 11th, 2012, when two high school football players in Steubenville, Ohio, carried a teenage girl around to a series of parties, took pictures of themselves raping her in various settings, then bragged about their crime on social media. The hormone-driven boys were especially hyped up after a win, when rapist and quarterback Trent Mays tweeted post-victory, “Party at jake howarths!!!! Huge party!!! Banger!!!!” The day after, he tweeted, “Some of these ‘nice dudes’ need ta shut the hell up.” The following day Mays tweeted, “Ya see, what had happened was…” followed by “Nothing even happened ppl seriously need to shut up.”
Despite attempts by the football-proud community to cover up the story, a cell of the hacker collective Anonymous called “KnightSec” unleashed Operation Roll Red Roll, leaking a 12-minute video of the rapists and their friends laughing about their crime, even underscoring the fact that it was a rape as they drunkenly laughed about the unconscious teenager being unable to wake up despite a “wang in the butthole.” Before Anonymous seized the twitter account of Michael Nodianos, the boy talking in the video, they took a screenshot of him commenting on a picture of the unconscious rape victim, saying, “Song of the night is definitely Rape Me by Nirvana.”
On March 12th, in the midst of the trial, Good Morning America ran a segment called “Steubenville Rape Case: What You Haven’t Heard” that focused entirely on the perspective of the rapists, coming from a storied high school football team, who just happened to rape someone after partying too hard. Their only passing mentions of the victim were intertwined with either how much she was coming on to her rapist at the first party, or how drunk she was as the night went on, and even how gentlemanly her rapist had been when he chivalrously gave his rape victim his coat so she wouldn’t get cold. From the story:
“Several witnesses said that once outside, the girl needed to stop in the street because she was sick again. ‘She throws up on her blouse and takes her blouse off,’ Ma’lik said. ‘And then she asked for something to drink and I gave her my jacket to cover her up.'”
The Good Morning America story capped their account of the lovable, complex, human rapists with a lamenting sentence about how a conviction would ensure “almost certain demise of their dreams of playing football.”
And of course, after the verdict was read, CNN infamously framed their sensationalized coverage with video of the teen rapists crying as they apologized for their crimes, and commentary from two talking heads about how the boys’ lives will never be the same, and how they’ll have the albatross of being labeled as a sex offender for the rest of their lives. CNN pundits had nothing to offer on how being gang-raped while unconscious will undoubtedly scar the 16 year-old victim for life, or how nights like that August 11th in Steubenville happen every day across America, to high school girls, college girls, and adult women alike. The entire sad story of Steubenville reeks of patriarchal culture.
It’s the same culture that tells young men that to be validated by your peers, you have to suppress any feelings toward women that involve treating them as equals rather than as sexual objects to be conquered. It’s the same culture that tells men that to be wanted by a woman, you have to be virile and aggressive or she’ll leave you for another man who is more virile and aggressive than you are. A patriarchal hetero-normative culture punishes boys who violate any of these rules with being ostracized as a “fag” by other boys in their social circles until they harden up and conform. For evidence of this, go to Google and type in “Women should,” “Women shouldn’t,” “Women want,” and “Women need.” The most popular searches that come up should horrify any decent person.
This cultural brainwashing of boys is done systematically from a young age through television, movies, music, and a tradition of idolizing virile professions like college and professional football. This cultural rot will continue, and we’ll continue to see incidents like Steubenville happen on a regular basis, until men become allies, embrace feminism not as a pejorative label but as something to be proud of, and collectively speak out against patriarchy. Let’s demand a cultural evolution, and let Steubenville be the first step.
I too wonder at the common sense-that does not excuse the crime or the criminals, but in everyday life, we make choices to lock cars, lock doors, we read restaurant reviews, google job applicants, dates and try to be sensible. What they did was not sensible and probably particularly so to someone who is from the area and knows its reputation for criminal activity. There are common sense choices we make every day and wondering why someone else does not is not blaming them for anything, it is an honest question. The comment is likely coming from a law enforcement officer that is not sophisticated in public relations and he is not likely even speaking English as his primary language or the comment was translated.
Madhya Pradesh is a lawless state known for crimes against women cemented by a paternalistic and gender biased caste system. While what the police spokesperson said was insensitive it is in fact true. In a 3rd world country, known for violence against women, one should not approach travel and tourism as one would in the swiss alps. As an Indian woman, I would not be caught dead camping in random villages…that is the reality of travelling in such countries. As an avid traveller, in India, I always wear traditional clothing int he villages and try to not attract attention. One must be cognizant of the country. Camping in Europe is very different from camping in India or the Congo for that matter. Imposition of western beliefs and requirements on a 3rd world eastern country is going to result in such occurrences. WHEN IN ROME is what comes to mind.
Why are we picking on Indiana again?
India is NOT a Pirate Territory. So, I will not say, Fly Over and Flush. But, having been to India, I will say that this couple needs to bike around some place like the Grand Tetons. If this happened in Harlem and the cops ranted about these idiots trying to sleep in their pup tent in Harlem then folks would say: well, yeah, no one is dumb enough to ride a bike through Harlem, much less try to camp out there. But, different strokes for different folks. Having been to both Harlem and many parts of India, I would say that this neck of the woods of India is quite a bit safer.
Oh yes… Camping means yes…..
That is a strange affirmative defense … they camped in the wrong place so they deserved a violent assault.
Our temple area is holy ground so good behavior is required on the temple grounds.
Camping is not good behavior.
Madness is on the loose.
They camped in the wrong place. That wrong place is called India!
I wonder how CNN would report this story… … …
There is absolutely no justification for the brutal crime, but we live in a disturbed and often violent world where you need to be aware of where you are at all times, especially in parts unknown. Also, if you look at crime statistics the US has far more reported cases of rape than any other country. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/quick-click/which-country-has-the-highest-reported-incidents-rape-data Skimpy data for sure, since the US Justice Dept. estimates that there were 300,000 cases of rape in US per year. Rape is a brutal crime that needs to be punished severely, but this isn’t an Indian only crime…..Not justification for what happened in India, but just saying……