Extended Essay (EE)
Swati Sugandh
Rape is not a simple crime. Worse than murder, it is scar the victim has to carry his or her's whole life. Defining rape is moreover not simple. The Oxford Dictionary defines rape as the crime, committed by a man, of forcing another person to have sexual intercourse with him without their consent and against their will, especially by the threat or use of violence against them. Rape is not only about physically damaging, it is emotionally traumatizing and more psychologically involved with a deep impact, that will be proved later in the cases dealt with below. Thus, that makes the whole yarn about rape even more complex.
Legally, its definition varies the world over, from countries having very lenient perspective on the crime to countries with exhaustive laws of all aspects of rape, to very strict laws. In some extreme cases, rape is meted out even as a punishment. For instance, in Pakistan, the Mukhtar Mai Case made headlines around the world in 2002. Mukhtar Mai’s adolescent brother was accused of sexually assaulting a young woman from another clan. A tribal council ordered that Mai be publicly gang-raped as punishment in order to shame her family. Moreover, historically rape has been used as a weapon of war. Rape seems to have been used differently by different social or cultural groups over time. Hence rape is viewed in multiple perspectives.
Referring to statistics, and focusing on the endless surveys, there is a very dangerous picture that gets etched. A particular survey indicated that at least thirteen per cent of females above the age of eighteen had been victim of at least one rape; not considering rape attempts at all. It is a huge social, cultural, and criminal stigma that has been there since mankind has been evolving.There are different patterns of rape that we will see in the cases studied below. Firstly, anger rape that is characterized by physical and verbal abuse, while the action is taking place and debasing the victim to take out the frustration in order to discharge the anger and using sex as a weapon. Secondly, power rape, Sex becomes a way to compensate for power rapist’s underlying feelings of inadequacy and feeds his concerns of capability, strength, authority and mastery. The power rapist relies upon verbal threats, intimidation with a weapon, and only uses the amount of force necessary to suppress his victim. Thirdly, sadistic rape, generallyinvolves torture and self-possession. The victim's injuries will be primarily focused on the sexual areas of her body; there may be damage of these areas. In some cases, sexual gratification may not be the mail goal, or even an aspect of what the rapist wants. Sometimes it may be about showing dominance and control. Sometimes to just cause fear and suffering, or any other such analogy. The rapist uses some type of instrument or foreign object to penetrate his victim.That effectively means that nearly every eighth or seventh female has been a victim of at least one rape in her life.
India with all its diversity and vibrancy, different languages, different cultures, different social and cultural environments can help us find some answers we search to study what exactly leads to rape. Delhi the capital of India and Bihar a state of the Indian republic in the north of India are places where these incidents have found to be occurring in a lob-sided manner when compared to other parts of India. Delhi leading to be called the rape capital of India, while Bihar got the infamous name- Rapistan for the same reasons. Case studies from these two regions should therefore make for some interesting insights into our understanding of rape.
Delhi as the capital of India, over a predominantly Punjabi culture has a high influx of people from all over India, primarily from the northern states as people migrate towards better opportunities and living conditions. Delhi with rapid urbanization and growth, high rates of education and intense access to media resulting in a heavy western influence in schools, still has high rape rates that are increasing. The urban spaces of Delhi are not friendly to women at all.
According to the most recent National Crime Records Bureau annual report, Delhi has the highest crime rate of 357 percent amongst mega cities in 2006. The previous year figures show that Delhi is risky for women. It has the highest rate of crime against women, 33 percent rape cases, 23 percent molestation cases, is the highest for any metro city. But this does not find proof in Delhi. Delhi has high literacy rates. People here are highly aware. It has stronger government and less corruption. Up to ninety percent of the cases which happen every twenty four hours are solved and rapists prosecuted. Thus there in theory should be less of rapes. But a case contrary to this is in place. What could be a possible reason for all this could be as in the rape case explained earlier, high amount of sexual frustration in the youth culminating from the fact that, Delhi has a heavy western influence. This pours out itself in manners, one of which is rapes.
Bihar on the other hand now, is one of the most underdeveloped states in India. It is known for corruption, mis-governance and illiteracy which have successfully thwarted the state’s growth in terms of civil and economic growth, educational growth as well as cultural and social growth leading to high levels of stigma in society, high levels of backwardness and deep penetration of superstitious belief. One factor that speaks loudest about the state of affairs in Bihar is the huge divide in the literacy rates in the state between males and females, both being low as well. Another factor is the sex ratio which is the most skewed in the country. The sex ratio of 911 for the composite state, Bihar and 907 after the division (Bihar and Jharkhand) state, recorded in 1991, is much below the national sex ratio of 927. At the Census of India 2001, sex ratio of Bihar at 921 is still lower as compared to the national sex ratio which is 933.
By interviewing the rape victims themselves we get a greater sense of how women from diverse backgrounds seem to reflect similar psychological consequences of rape. And moreover understand the pain they went through which is sometimes forgotten when these incidents are overtaken by the media.
Being able to take an interview with a person who has gone through this ordeal is a daunting task in itself and questioning the victim is a much graver task. The incident itself has been a very depressing incident and asking the victim to relive the experience is something that should not be warranted off a victim. So questions to be asked have to be sensitive to the incident and take into account the victim’s background, not making the victim uncomfortable at any point of time.
The NGO which I found in Bihar was one which I selected was doing exceptional work at a very micro level, which I believed had maximum impact. It dealt with helping victims of rape to cope up with their drowned confidence of being a female figure, get back to leading a normal life and give them counseling and in some cases vocational skills to get over the trauma.
Through these NGOs I was able to meet three victims of rape incidents. These case studies are similar in that they were not reported to the police and remained at the level of NGO support. These cases are different in that we are dealing with women from different socio-economic backgrounds however there is a stark similarity in their psychological response to the rape. One was in Delhi, and the other two in Bihar. One of the two in rural Bihar and the other in Urban or by international standards semi-urban parts of Bihar, which is its capital Patna, located at the very center of the state. What is strange about these three incidents is that they are completely different in reason of the crime, the psychology behind them, and in many other factors.
Under directions of the NGOs I was only allowed to ask few questions after they went over the case study of the victim. I went through a lot of case studies in this regard. This process gave me one important realization, more than just rape, some of which are reported, there are a lot more cases of molestation, rape attempts and other atrocities on women and children across different places in India. The problem is much more deep spread and stronger than we can anticipate by our flow of knowledge which comes from the media.
One of the many cases I read through in Bihar was one of the most typical cases of rape in the region. This was a case where three ‘adivasi’ or tribal girls who worked as bonded labors were raped. This was in a rural part of Bihar where these three girls worked in a brick kiln in the Nalanda District, under imaginably bad conditions. These women through the day, under the heat of the sun or the blistering cold, they work long hours at very low pay. These women and children, who work here, live in nearby temporary huts and are offered very little amenities. Thus this all leads to there being no security, in any manner and living conditions below the poverty line.
The huts are 3'x6'x3' which is a used for all purposes like cooking, sleeping, etc. There are no doors. They have made up doors made from straws and wood to keep away dogs. There is no provision for a protection at this kiln. Anybody can enter and leave without any hindrance. There is even no arrangement for toilets or bathing places for any of these laborers. No basic needs are met. All of this results in girls going to the fields for toilet purposes and end up being teased by local boys. There is absolutely no privacy for bathing and being watched by boys roaming around. These women are constantly under threat of sexual harassment, sometimes even by employers. In these conditions, women have been known to be regularly mistreated, and in some cases that I came across even sexually harassed. Here in this brick kiln 11 months ago, a group of men, who were armed, robbed the brick kiln at night, and then entered the huts of these laborers’ where they found these women. Three of these women were captured, beaten up and raped by the group of men.
I was able to secure an interview of one of these victims who was taken under custody by one of the NGOs. When I first met the girl, my first reaction was of surprise and second of pity and a sudden jolt of a synergy of shock, sadness and finally anger. This girl who was raped was a lot younger than I was. Her face had lost most of its youth, and a tired façade was what her face portrayed.
I was myself a bit scared and very careful in transcending the talk to the actual rape itself, being vigilant about my words as they might not hurt her. But when I finally did I was again surprised by her strong reply. It gave me a clear perspective on her and that she had accepted the incident by her openness to talk about it.
I interviewed Kumari, who is a migrant from Bangladesh (possibly illegally, though I never questioned her on that) and was here so they (She and her family, who also worked in the kiln) don’t die of starvation. So they rather work in the most inhumane conditions than be hungry. The incident day she was forced to work for more hours as she didn’t go on work the previous day and that night, despite, after paying for her absence from work, she had to go through another catastrophic circumstance which is now stamped in her life ceaselessly. She tried informing the people on work the next morning about herself but continued working from the very next day, swallowing pride and under all the shame. This only resulted in continuity of such incidents, and safety decreased substantially. She went on to say that more than anything one’s dignity and life was important, of which there was no respect in the kiln.
“I was helpless, I couldn’t do anything, nobody paid attention to me” said by Kumari says a lot about the increasing rate of rape. Under these circumstances, the rape victims feel varying degrees of fear, guilt, embarrassment and anger. These emotions do not sit at the surface of the mind but affect the woman for a long time after the attack. The fear a woman feels may interweave through all aspects of her life. More than likely she was attacked going about her business, feeling safe in her world. Once that security is raided, the woman may be apprehensive about her daily regular habits. She may approach strangers and even friends and acquaintances with a new caution.
A woman feels guilty for being the victim of such a vindictive incident and why was she who was targeted. The question that would mount in her mind would be “did she ask for it” or someone got a wrong impression of hers. The embarrassment period to pass through this rough phase of trauma is to face the people who are going to think negative about her. This may lead her to avoid men in her life for a longer period of time and nervous of having sex again. And finally the anger that will be burning inside her could be of her freedom being violated and disrupted and hence the man who made her life a misery is still moving free. Anger may lead to different forms but most psychologists feel that this emotion of their life may lead to successful recovery from the tormenting experience. It is a juncture that the woman wants to struggle back and get her life in order. However there is a risk of this anger may be projected onto others who are not involved.
Another case in Patna was unique in another sense. This was that shocking again as it infringed another boundary, which is trust. In this case a 16 year old girl was raped by her school principal in school premises itself. “Sahib, took me to a classroom patting his hand on my back, I thought he was going to praise me for my achievements on the sports day” said by the faded voice of the rape victim over the phone. The carefree smile and the cheerfulness went away from the girl’s face when she became the prey of this unexpected horrid rape attack. The school was a government school, where the principal got the girl into a secluded class room and raped her. The strange thing was that this case was not reported or filed for a week till a week after the rape itself. This was because of a culmination of factors, one being scared of non-acting authorities, and pressure and threats from principal himself. In a place where you cannot trust the authorities, the basic social infrastructure from rights to laws falls apart.
I got to communicate with the girl who was the victim in this case over the telephone. The girl spoke in well spoken English and was polite. She knew the topic of discussion and spoke little about the events that happened. To me the most striking thing was her saying that she has lost trust and confidence in this world. In a school, which in Indian culture is considered a temple of learning, a sacred place, where teachers are considered greater than parents, when such an incident happens; there is no rationale to trust even walking alone on the road.
Such has been the breaking of trust and confidence that a rape victim entails. When I got more enquiries into the present condition of the case, the principal was shifted to another government school, where he continues at his post. And the child was shifted to a private school. The case which has been running for 3 years against the accused, and the parents are willing to drop it as they see no solution. In no way this is a path of punishment and retribution that a judicial case should be executed at, and moreover sets a bad example. The slow and corrupt judicial system only encourages more rapists to rape and plunder.
Moving from Bihar to the capital of the country, Delhi, we see a vast change of demographics, governance and society, but still the number of rape cases is high. One of the cases I looked at was one in the affluent colony of Delhi. A 26 year old married woman was raped by a group of young teenagers. The lady was abducted into a car by the boys and taken to one of their houses in the colony where she was subject to more than two hours of terror.
Getting to talk to her, I got to know about rapists and was shocked to know that this time the rapists were younger than I was. The lady said in rage “If my child was a part of it, I would have committed suicide better than being called his mother”. Having asked her what imprint the rape incident left on her, she answered that beyond the physical aspects, what will remain will be shock and fear that children will commit such acts and with such ruthlessness as she experienced. The retribution was swift in New Delhi, as these teenagers all studying in good schools were sent off to Juvenile correction center. Hence, in this case Sexual desire is less a stimulus for the boys than violent aggression.
Rape as a crime of violent behavior is maybe best understood by investigative studies of the rapist, who he is and why he does it. However, it is somewhat disconcerting.Investigation done by Amir in the 60’s and 70’s indicates that rapist is not the psychopathic, rebellious men one would think them to be. Offenders interviewed by members of the organization at a maximum security state mental hospital believed that the prevention or evasion of rape was the blame on the women. According to Amir’s theory there are two categories that rapists are labeled under “criminal” and “psychiatric”. He views criminal rapists as a poor, uneducated man from the lower socioeconomic level having a criminal record of crimes such as exhibitionism, fetishism, etc. Mostly, antisocial and easily influenced by his surroundings. The psychiatric rapists are a well educated man from a higher economic group; they end up raping because of some personal problems or insufficiency and might go through the feeling of guilt after the assault. Nevertheless, these theories are not generally conventional but are considered as a stepping stone in an additional profound research. A more broadly accepted theory is that many rapists comes from different cultures and most of them end up doing this crime in order to show their masculinity and supremacy in competition with the dominant culture. Therefore these adolescents and young men may be indicating their toughness and maleness in a more violent and harmful manner.
There are thousands of rape cases occurring everywhere around us, every day we read about them in the newspapers. More and more of such horrific crime keep happening. This crime has sustained itself over centuries. Leading us to wonder if this crime is an innate feature of mankind. Is this the way our way is wired to allow such crimes to be repeated and passed down in genetics.
In Bihar, we can get a better perspective on the high frequency of rapes, going as high as every 6 hours; point out to a problem with the population as a whole. This starts from a weak government influencing corruption, less development work, less education, going onto less awareness and more backwardness, leading to subjugation of women and more rape cases.
If we look at the three institutions with which a woman will come into contact are as follows; the police, the hospital, and the courts.
In most locations the patrolling officer responds to a complaint by a rape victim and in most situations, this officer has probably had little, if any, training in dealing with rape.
Unfortunately, many police officers are hostile towards the female rape victim. They might find it embarrassing to question a woman about their sexual assault. The frequent questions asked by the police focuses on the reason woman being targeted for the assault , by her dress or invited a man to her house, taking a lift from a man , going to a bar unescorted, or by her previous sexual experiences. The cop may stay asking on the sexual aspect of the rape, asking her to illustrate her feelings during the attack, the rapist’s genitals, or the place in which she is raped. Fortunately, in many areas, police departments are launching special rape units and hence training police officers when dealing with rape victims.
No matter the rape victim informs the police about the rape attack but she should definitely obtain medical care. When a woman who has been raped arrives at a hospital, medical personnel hold several responsibilities. They must treat the patient and also get ready with the evidence handing in to the police that a rape did occur.
The rape victim apart from obtaining medical care should also go for pregnancy and venereal disease tests. A doctor should be able to explain the reason for the requirements of these tests and should check for the presence of semen in the vagina and also on other parts of her body and clothes. In the hospital emergency room, where rape victims are immediately taken, doctors do not always react sympathetically. And therefore, women often report they are issues to unfriendly and irrelevant questions
Some women do report to the police but they do not put charges on the rapist. Although the police and medical personnel often throw unfair questions to the rape victim in the court room. She may choose to have her own attorney, but the person only works as an advisor and thus the court appoints the prosecutor over whom she will have no control. It’s a cycle that still continues. Moreover it provides the necessary nurture to nature that makes up a deadly combination that cumulates into rape tendencies
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