AoW 1.28
Directions:
1. Read the article. Please make at least 6 annotations.
2. Write a one-page response to the article. You may use the prompts at the end of the article if you like. Remember to use complete paragraphs, complete sentences, and complete thoughts.
Ending India’s Rape Culture
Source: 1.3.13. Naomi Wolf, Al Jazeera
Women and men who support freedom of movement and safety from sex crimes
are being forced to "refight that battle.”
The crime seems incomprehensible. A 23-year-old physiotherapy student is dead, 12 days
after having been raped for more than an hour by six men in a bus travelling on main
roads in the Indian capital. Her internal injuries from the iron rod that her attackers used
were so severe that doctors had to remove her intestines in their effort to save her life.
Indians, it seems, have had enough. Dozens of large and increasingly angry demonstrations have been held to demand that the government ensure women's security and stop treating rapists with impunity. While the authorities have sought to quell the protests - cordoning off central New Delhi and subjecting the rest of the city to traffic restrictions - violence has escalated. After a policeman died, live ammunition was fired into the crowds - killing a journalist, Bwizamani Singh, and provoking a rebuke from Reporters without Borders.
It is not simply the high rate of rape in India that is driving the protests' virulence. In a
passionate speech, Kavita Krishnan, Secretary of the All India Progressive Women's
Association, spoke to the deeper issue behind the protests: the blame-the-victim culture in
India around sex crimes. She notes that government and police officials recently insisted
that most rapists cannot be prosecuted in India, because, as one official put it, they are
known to the women attacked. Other officials have publicly suggested that victims
themselves are "asking for it" by their use of freedom of movement.
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