The BBC is reporting another shocking murder of a victim in a rape case in India. We have followed the dire conditions for girls and women who are often traded away in marriages or subjected to child bride arrangements that are little more than religiously sanctioned rape. The latest case involves a 16-year-old girl who was raped at a wedding and her attackers were then fined $750 and, according to the BBC, ordered to do 100 sit-ups. While most of us are outraged by such light punishment, the attackers were outraged in their own right and beat the parents and then burned the victim alive.
This unspeakable crime occurred in Chatra, a village in eastern Jharkhand state. The “elders” were asked to address the problem and their resolution is all-too-familiar in this culture where girls are often treated little better than chattel.
India has taken steps to crackdown on such attacks and abuse of young girls. However, the problem often resides with these village elders who apply religious and cultural values that devalue the lives of the victims. What is unspeakable is that these men have been raised to believe that such a murder is reasonable or understandable or excusable.
Police are still searching for the main culprit but arrests have been made.
This is just a glimpse into the horrific conditions for so many women and girls in places like Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, and so many other countries. Our government has worked hard across Administrations to support reforms and this tragedy should serve to redouble all of our efforts to seek true safety and equality for women, particularly in these recidivistic nations.
Reblogged this on Citizens, not serfs.
Is this the Hindu way? If it is, this certainly doesn’t make the Hindus much better than Muslims in their treatment of women.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2784629/
1/3 of married women in India stated that they had been abused by their husbands. Almost half reported so in certain provinces. Since discussing domestic violence is still taboo in India, one would surmise that the actual occurrence is even higher.
India has a serious problem with its cultural attitudes towards women in general, and violence specifically.
I have just read the comments devolving below. Wondering if a legitimate problem is common or not in no way belittles it.
Here is some more information about violence against women in India:
http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~ruchitarathi/infoviz-final-caw/
It should be noted that women participate in violence against other women, often in the form of cruelty and dowry abuse. For instance, a mother-in-law would beat her son’s wife if she didn’t bring enough dowry, or kill her to free him up to remarry and get another dowry. They also support and participate in the forced marriages of their daughters, and of course women keep the female genital mutilation cycle going in India. It’s women who actually perform the mutilation. This is not just a male problem.
http://www.indiaspend.com/cover-story/crime-against-women-up-83-conviction-rate-hits-decadal-low-18239
Reported crime against women up 83%, but part of that is due to more women actually coming forward. Evidence suggests the true number of occurrences is even higher. Tragically, although reporting has gone up, convictions have gone down. If the woman victim decides to divorce her abusive husband, she is required to withdraw her criminal complaint. That drives home the message of “why bother” reporting? It’s not like the law will protect you.
“the problem often resides with these village elders who apply religious and cultural values that devalue the lives of the victims.”
But wait… I keep being told that all cultures are equal. You’re just being a judgmental, xenophobe, racist. That culture is just as good as Western culture. She says, dripping sarcasm.
Straw-man; assuming facts not in evidence; and, mouth breathing troll. Three for three. Reddit’s down the hall.
this is to “but it was peachy-keen when we lynched the uppity blacks” goldy
That poor baby girl. Her poor parents. This is heartbreaking. Terrible crimes happen all the time like this in the world. It’s an abstraction in print. I cannot conceive of what the reality must have been. I cannot imagine the level of hatred one must have against women. There is a rigidity to the caste system, in which one is raised to believe that someone deserves everything that happens to them.
“Steps are being taken”? What steps? Are the mindset of the authorities in step with the villagers? Will they be asked to do sit-ups in jail for a night? Who imposed the initial, absurd penalty? A judge in a court system or village elders?
Here is the dirty truth about cultural relativism: all cultures are emphatically not of equal in all things. Indian culture is rich in beautiful traditions such as yoga and dance. There are also entrenched aspects such as the caste system, the treatment of women, child brides, temporary marriages, bride burnings to get a new dowry, acid attacks, and the like, that are substandard when compared with the US. If you like Western civilization, then you will abhor such practices. I have known many Hindu and Muslim Indians. One’s husband forced her to have abortions but refused to allow her birth control. He made her sleep on the floor. She was an educated professional. One talked about how there was a particular way she had to serve her husband his meals. He had to eat first. He had control over her. He was allowed to beat her. Eventually she got free. Another was a foreign exchange student teenage girl who stayed with some friends of mine. Her family arranged a marriage for her to a stranger who was quite a bit older than her. As soon as she graduated high school, she was required to return to India and get married. After that, she would belong to her husband’s family. She was scared, but she said if she refused, she would lose her family forever. She absolutely could not lose them. In my mind, I thought, why not? They are giving you away to a stranger more than twice your age and you won’t belong to them anymore anyway? They’re not exactly putting your safety and happiness first, are they? They aren’t afraid of you getting hurt, why should you be afraid of upsetting them? Besides, they may come around. She went through with it and I have no idea whatever happened to her. There were many other similar stories amongst the people I’ve known. The country generally lacks in its attitudes towards women, even though women of a certain caste have access to education.
This is also a concern in immigration for the following reasons:
1. Those who support open borders and illegal immigration have not ever voiced a convincing argument on why there should be no minimum standards that must be met. For example, for me, burning your 16-year-old rape victim to death would forever strike them off the list of prospective immigrants. If you oppose making all immigrants go through the system, then you are going to get maniacs like this in our country, in the path of future victims.
2. Frankly, one of the minimum standards that should be applied would be a willingness to accept Western values. If you come from a country where you are entitled to rape women and girls, and murder them when they complain about it, then they would not be good candidates for assimilation. Ideally, one would want citizens who had a general Westernized value system, while still incorporating some of their own traditions. For example, the Polish, Italian, and Scottish populations seamlessly incorporate their love of their ancestral homeland and traditions into the foundation of a US citizen. Where this can run into difficulty is when the culture of their homeland is severely at odds with that of their new country. I would think, for example, that it would be quite difficult to go from a land where they applaud throwing gay men off of rooftops, to San Francisco, where they must not harm any gay men.
3. Numbers. A smaller amount of immigration gets hopefully folded into our culture. They have time to learn our ways. If we were to import a block of a million people, for example, they would not change. They would balkanize from us, retaining mores that might be sharply at odds with our laws, and creating no-go places.
Immigrating to the US is a privilege, not a right. No one has the right to force their way around our immigration laws. I have absolutely no idea if everyone in the immigrant caravan at our border are nice people or not. What I do know is that they have been told to go through the system, and they shouted in our faces, NO! We will come, show off in front of news cameras that you can’t tell us what to do, storm your border, and you will take us, give us benefits, and never deport us. That right there shows a blatant disrespect for our laws and a general aggression that is troubling.
We do not have the moral directive to let so many people into our country that we import crime, or lose our Western identity. If we brought in enough men who believed that rape victims should shut up about it, over time, how would that affect the rates of crimes against women in our country? Could we eventually change to such a degree that the very legal protections we enjoy could get voted away? I already see a hint of this in Hillary Clinton’s proposed blasphemy laws. That would be ludicrous to suggest a mere 25 years ago, but now it has some support. How will this trend continue over the next 100 years? 200 years? It is not now that particularly worries me, but farther in the future.
What I want to convey is that I would want to have saved this 16 year old girl. I would have wanted her to come to our country, not the men who raped and burned her. I want our immigration procedure to do its best to prevent people who viciously hate women, or other groups, from getting in, and to help those who are harmed by them. “Wanting a better life” is not a sufficient motivation. The rapist murderers might want better economic opportunities. I still never want them here.
tl:dr
I know, I know. The inability to find my point before acres of text is a flaw in my writing. I need to learn how to be more succinct.
Undoubtedly, because the poster is named Karen.
Shorter version: Immigration without assimilation is invasion.
Right. There you go. Thanks FFS!
I am for diversity, not misogyny and madness.
You nailed it about the 16-year-old rape victim’s murderers never being welcomed The 16-year-old rape victim’s murderers deserve the death penalty for their hate crime against her and her family, not 100 sit-ups and a $750.00 fine.
If you were not so busy insulting strangers you might take a moment to try and empathize with the women and girls who suffered unspeakable acts, but I suspect that is beyond you. Gang rape, acid attacks, and burning women alive, and you want to talk statistics? I can see how these crimes have gone on for so long with people like you rationalizing and minimizing the unthinkable. Kindly go back under your misogynistic rock and leave people of normal sensibilities alone. Your callous nature is appalling.
Madam, I am not your problem. You are your problem.
You assume I’m a woman because I care about the victims of these unspeakable crimes? Careful, your misogyny is on full display.
Psychic injuries are significant. Your minimization of these horrific crimes against women and girls is nothing short of astounding. I am so glad that you signed your comment with an appropriate description of yourself, Bozo. Self knowledge is important.
Councils of village elders carry no legal weight. However, they have significant influence in many parts of rural India and are a way of settling disputes without having to go through India’s expensive judicial system.
Police in the state say that they have arrested 14 of the 18 people they want to investigate with regards to the rape and subsequent murder.
IOW, the parents put the matter in front of private arbitrators. The elders don’t actually have a palpable apparatus of coercion at their disposal. Do you actually read these stories before commenting on them?
By the way, the homicide rate in India is 3.2 per 100,000, which is 1/3 lower than the homicide rate in the U.S. (and in a locus with less sophisticated trauma care). Does this weigh in your judgment about who values life and who doesn’t? While we’re at it, the practice of abortion is subject to stringent formal restrictions in India. If you applied Indian law in the U.S, about 95% of the abortions now performed in this country would be prohibited. Does this weigh in your judgment about who values life?
Female infanticide and sex-selective abortion is a major problem in India. There is a booming black market abortion industry which disposes of female pregnancies. Females have less status than men, leave their family and so are of no support to their parents when they are older, require the parents to provide them with a dowry, and are generally looked upon as less than males.
Does this impact your judgement upon the value of life in India?
Not a whole lot. The sex ratio at birth in the UK (males/females) is 1.05. That in India is 1.12, which suggests that about 7% of the daughters are intentionally aborted. That’s gruesome, but you’re living in a country where 20% of all pregnancies end in surgical abortion because people use abortion as a species of contraception. Our tft is pretty good for an occidental country (at 1.8 or 1.9), but it’s been depressed for 40 years or more. India’s tfr is 2.5, so, yes, they value life more.
Many years ago, a young woman where I worked was permitted to spam the entire workplace with a promotional on promoting ‘women’s health’. I set her a reply that I wasn’t inclined to devote time to promoting ‘women’s health’ as my time was rationed on account of my lower life expectancy. (Yes, women’s life expectancy in India is 3 years longer than men’s).
Such is the nature of the Left.
How does this have anything to do with the left?! It’s all about theocracy which is the ideal of the right wing. We see it every day across the our own country.
It has nothing to do with theocracy or the left. Nor is ‘theocracy’ the ‘ideal’ of ‘the right wing’. Nor do we see anything resembling this anywhere in this country.
Justice Holmes – the left acts as a theocracy.
It has everything to do with the Left. In case you haven’t noticed, a key part of the Leftist agenda is to IMPORT such conduct into nations. It’s happening in Sweden. It’s happening in London. And the Left is doing its best to import it to the US.
And this is what our enlightened dems want to allow in our beloved USA under the guise of sharia law !! FEH !!! DMD
India is governed by Sharia Law? To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people.
All India Muslim Personal Law Board applies Sharia Law to personal matters of Muslim Indians. There are in effect different laws governing Indians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_India_Muslim_Personal_Law_Board
“The AIMPLB focuses primarily to defend the Sharia laws from any law or legislation that they consider infringes on it. In this role initially it has objected to any change in the Divorce Laws for Muslim women. In this regard it has even published a book – Nikah-O-Talaq (Marriage and Divorce). However, from time to time it has been hinted by the board that it might reconsider its position. It has also objected to gay rights and supports uphelding the 1861 Indian law that bans sexual intercourse between persons of the same sex.”
So you are both right – there is a presence of Sharia Law in India but the entire nation is not under Sharia Law.
On the bright side, your post comprehensively demonstrates that even idiots have access to the interwebs.
this is to “making ‘Merica stupider agin, one post at a time” DMD
I just finished reading The Erotic Stories of Punjabi Widows for my fiction book club and honor killings like this (and yes, this is considered an honor killing) is a real problem both in India and in England.
Real problems are not necessarily common problems.
Although perhaps uncommon, these types of crimes are brutal and inhumane. Your equivocating is a further injury to all the victims of “honor killings” and their families.
I’m not injuring anyone.
Bozo
Psychic injuries are significant. Your minimization of these horrific crimes against women and girls is nothing short of astounding. I am so glad that you signed your comment with an appropriate description of yourself, Bozo. Self knowledge is so important.
There is no such thing as a ‘psychiic injury’ derived from reading the newspaper, much less from reading a remark on how common or uncommon are the events you read about in the newspaper.
You like to strike poses and cite people for fanciful delicts. You might find a more elevated hobby than making a repellent nuisance of yourself.
Projection is an amazing psychic phenomenon. Your assertions are unsupported by fact, citation, authority, or expertise. Certainly people can be injured by things that they read, and how individuals and society as a whole perceives the gravity of crimes perpetrated against them. I suggest you take your own advice and find a hobby that elevates lives rather than devaluing them.
My sympathies to the people who have to deal with you in meatworld, especially those who can’t just can you and have security escort you off the premises.
“[M]eatworld”? You truly are insufferable and deliberately obtuse.
You have emotional problems, and you’ve been spewing them all over this thread in the form of vacuous displays of anger. I can do nothing about those problems, nor can anyone else here.
You say this rarely happens. Right…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/05/12/3-girls-1-week-teens-raped-set-on-fire-in-india/?utm_term=.78bb1eb6ad11
Not just a real problem. So-called ‘honor’ killings are the most disgusting and appalling hate crimes ever.