Two sisters sentenced to be raped in India

[doggie]

the horror and stupidity of this is just amazing.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/601 ... rape-India

The sick ruling was ordered by an unelected all-male council in a remote village in the Baghpat district of northern India, just outside Delhi.

The girls aged 23 and 15 have been forced to leave their home with the remainder of their family according to Amnesty International.

News outlets in the country have revealed that the sister's brother, Ravi, fell in love with a woman from the Jat caste, a higher caste than him and his family who are Dalit the lowest in India's caste system and are referred to as 'untouchable'.

On July 31 the village council deemed the appropriate punishment for Ravi running away with a married woman from a higher caste was for his sisters to be raped.

Nothing could justify this abhorrent punishment

Amnesty International

Amnesty International have launched a petition appealing for India's authorities to intervene.

In the appeal the human rights NGO said: "Unelected village councils such as this are widespread in parts of India.

"More often than not they are made up of older men from dominant castes, who prescribe rules for social behaviour and interaction in villages.

"Nothing could justify this abhorrent punishment. It's not fair. It's not right. And it's against the law."

[SPHASH]

FFS.

[salex]

This sort of inane and vicious treatment of women is why i moved India off of my must see countries.

[Maggie Mae]

Sick.

So when you sentence someone to be raped, who does the raping? How do they hold themselves as the morality police?

[Maggie Mae]

This sort of inane and vicious treatment of women is why i moved India off of my must see countries.

This isn't all of India. This isn't a legal court. India has difficulty with enforcement in its rural areas. To say that it's all of India is disingenuous.

[doggie]

Sick.

So when you sentence someone to be raped, who does the raping? How do they hold themselves as the morality police?

because the rapee's are the lowest caste and not really human thats how.

[doggie]

This isn't all of India. This isn't a legal court. India has difficulty with enforcement in its rural areas. To say that it's all of India is disingenuous.

very true good at pointing that out.

[roddma]

How horrible. Why not punish the brother? He's the one who did the 'wrong'.

[Fascinated]

Jesus Fucking H Christ.

[anjulibai]

Every Indian I have ever met would be utterly disgusted by this, so it's not like this is normal for India. Remember, it's a nation of over a billion people and hundreds of cultures and languages. Shit happens.

[Jana814]

How horrible. Why not punish the brother? He's the one who did the 'wrong'.

Agree!!

[QuestioningQuivers]

So sad. No one deserves that as a punishment. :cry:

[Fascinated]

So sad. No one deserves that as a punishment. :cry:

Yes. That is an understatement.

[Cleopatra7]

Agree!!

Women and girls tend to be viewed as the communal property of their families and communities in traditional societies, rather than autonomous individuals. Since the brother disgraced the name of the family upper caste woman he ran off with, they are responded in kind by "disgracing"/raping his sisters. The actual needs and wants of the women in both families is irrelevant, since they're just considered to be extensions of their castes and families.

[prayawaythefundie]

:pink-shock: :pull-hair: :angry-banghead: We might need a crying smiley.

[roddma]

Women and girls tend to be viewed as the communal property of their families and communities in traditional societies, rather than autonomous individuals. Since the brother disgraced the name of the family upper caste woman he ran off with, they are responded in kind by "disgracing"/raping his sisters. The actual needs and wants of the women in both families is irrelevant, since they're just considered to be extensions of their castes and families.

Silly me should have known that

[J'Lurker]

Is it the husband of the woman who the brother ran off with the person who gets to rape the women? (which is a term I'm using loosely here, because FIFTEEN!!! is not a woman.)

How archaic.

[apandaaries]

Silly me should have known that

Just remember, women=people ONLY in certain situations, definitely not everywhere, at every moment in time.

[terranova]

Every Indian I have ever met would be utterly disgusted by this, so it's not like this is normal for India. Remember, it's a nation of over a billion people and hundreds of cultures and languages. Shit happens.

Two girls are going to be raped, and oh dear, never mind, shit happens? Really?

Fuck you.

I will also never visit India. Until something is done about the rape culture, until the people in charge decide to actually enforce laws and remove these barbaric practices, they won't be getting my tourist money.

And yes, maybe I am enforcing my culture's standards upon another culture, but they are also MY standards and I won't lower them.

[anjulibai]

Two girls are going to be raped, and oh dear, never mind, shit happens? Really?

Fuck you.

I will also never visit India. Until something is done about the rape culture, until the people in charge decide to actually enforce laws and remove these barbaric practices, they won't be getting my tourist money.

And yes, maybe I am enforcing my culture's standards upon another culture, but they are also MY standards and I won't lower them.

What I meant was, shit happens everywhere and it's not okay to judge the entire country of over a billion people by this one horrific thing.

We have a rape culture in the US. We have a broken justice system that preys on the poor and minorities. We have a problem with police violence. We have a problem with gun violence. We have a broken mental healthcare system. And a whole host of other horrific problems.

We also have a lot of wonderful things, as does India. Acting like India is somehow worse than the US, or any other Western society, is blind at best, and extremely bigoted at worst.

Oh, and fuck you too.

[jaelh]

I will also never visit India. Until something is done about the rape culture, until the people in charge decide to actually enforce laws and remove these barbaric practices, they won't be getting my tourist money.

It is probably good you don't visit India with this attitude.

Mind you. There are some horrific crimes perpetrated against women in India. And in the US, and Canada too. And racial killings! Let's see... where do they happen?

I wouldn't want to be anti-government in China. or Cuba, or Vietnam. or Myanmar.

Wouldn't want to be indigenous.. most places. No visiting Canada till the indigenous women's death rate is way down, no?

And heck - the way Europeans and Australians and Americans are responding to migrants/refugees/asylum seekers? Better get those destinations off the list too.

Middle East is out, I'm sure, right? No beautiful Iranian mosques for you!

Russia, heck, no way with that approach to homophobia and strident Orthodoxy.

The Philippines - hell no, not with the political killings and the elites, right?

And Mexico; not until the government works out what's going on with the drug wars, right?

Or belonging to the wrong political party in Guatemala? Yeah; that's a no, too.

Point is - most places are fucked up in their own special ways. If you think the way tribal law operates in some places in India is such that you wish to condemn the whole country. Good for you, stick to your guns and don't go.

But heck. It doesn't matter *where* you go, you're going to be "giving" your money to regimes that either support, or fail to stop, the oppression of some group or another.

So yeah. Please don't go to India. You need to wait till they've lifted their hundreds of millions of people to higher incomes to afford the policing you want, and by then, I'm sure that - like the west - there'll be plenty of other problems that would justify making sure they* don't "get" your tourist dollars.

The favourite version of this argument I heard was one night in Esfahan, maybe 10 years ago. A bunch of (male**) backpackers waxing sanctimonious about how they could *never* visit Myanmar while that oppressive government was in place. It was $&%^ surreal.

I'm all for Integrity and Ethics in Travel (more of it, please!) but differentiating our Integrity and Ethics from our Racism can be Damn Hard To Do.

*they being.. who, exactly? The government? "the people in charge"? (who are they?) the hotel operators? The old ladies selling tourist trinkets?

**yes, the gender does matter here.

[terranova]

I can't take a stand against everything immoral in the world, but I can take a stand against this.

I agree it's difficult to differentiate our ethics and racism.

[Toothfairy]

Women and girls tend to be viewed as the communal property of their families and communities in traditional societies, rather than autonomous individuals. Since the brother disgraced the name of the family upper caste woman he ran off with, they are responded in kind by "disgracing"/raping his sisters. The actual needs and wants of the women in both families is irrelevant, since they're just considered to be extensions of their castes and families.

This is so wrong and backwards.

[hilee]

I shudder to think what happened to the woman who ran off on her husband if this is the punishment for 2 innocent girls.

[EmmieJ]

What I meant was, shit happens everywhere and it's not okay to judge the entire country of over a billion people by this one horrific thing.

We have a rape culture in the US. We have a broken justice system that preys on the poor and minorities. We have a problem with police violence. We have a problem with gun violence. We have a broken mental healthcare system. And a whole host of other horrific problems.

We also have a lot of wonderful things, as does India. Acting like India is somehow worse than the US, or any other Western society, is blind at best, and extremely bigoted at worst.

Oh, and fuck you too.

The U.S. is far from perfect, but one thing India has that the United States does not are unelected town councils that have the power to impose such punishments. We also don't have a caste system, although we all know that we do have different classes and certain classes are treated much better than other groups of people.

I don't care if my opinion is "fuck you" worthy or not, but India does have a serious problem with the way women are viewed and treated and it's way way worse than the inequality and every day difficulties women in the United States face. At least if my brother ran off with a married woman from the upper classes, I would have no fear that some group of old disgusting morally corrupt men would have the ability and power to sentence me to be raped. If you have information that this sort of shit happens in the United States, with no legal recourse, I am willing to revise my opinion.

Just as I boycott Wal-Mart because I disagree with their corporate greed and the way they treat their employees, I factor in how governments treat their people when I decide whether I want to visit one particular country over another.