Sentenced to gang rape??

[Dervel]

Words really do fail me sometimes. Is there something we can do? The international community that is?

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/indian-sisters-fleeing-rape-punishment-appeal-to-supreme-court-for-protection-10476581.html

Anmesty is running a campaign

Words fail me too

I can't find the words to respond to that article. If ever there was a reason to suspend diplomatic relations with a country this is it.

Words fail me. As a country it must have the worst record for treatment of women.

Amnesty Petition

Would the girls and their family ever be able to safely return home? If the petition is successful, would the illegal council who sentenced the rape just leave the family alone if they returned?

I assume the supreme court will put a stop to this as it's illegal? And they have previously described these courts as kangaroo courts and they aren't supposed to happen?

I hope so anyway.

It is good that these women were able to get away and make a petition to the supreme court and get the story out I hope this means that they will be protected.

The idea that it happens in the first place - and we know that punishments like this have been carried out - is just so mind-bendingly awful I don't know where to put it. Even before you note the fact that it's not the women who have even done anything "wrong".

Getting the world to move forward with this stuff is just such a huge task and there are so many trying to actively push back / revert other parts of the world.

i hope that this story works out well. India needs to get to grips with this stuff and fast.

There's been a thread for several days about this on AIBU.

Sorry it's in Chat. There is a new thread in AIBU.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2457333-Women-to-be-raped-as-punishment-for-their-brothers-actions

Yes I saw that yesterday I think. It's one of those things where you think, it's all just hopeless, I mean what can you even do. That was how I was feeling.

It just made me think of how some people complain about when women on MN or FWR talk about seemingly trivial western/UK things, but I guess that's the areas where posters probably feel that they can have most direct impact. Stuff like this, I mean realistically, what can you do? What is there to say? Sign a petition. People donate to grass roots charities. It just engenders a whole bunch of feelings around what's the fucking point, when there are so many people in the world who think shit like this (and there is so much shit like this), that they just literally see women as sub-human, possessions,

oh I don't know.

So many posters on the other thread are saying how thankful they are to live in a country where women have rights. I get that, I totally do, but it makes me so angry that women actually feel GRATEFUL and THANKFUL that we are treated like human beings by men.

Just to clarify, I'm not angry with women for feeling like this - I'm the same - but just disgusted that the world is so utterly geared towards men and that it excuses their violence against women to such a degree that we women feel relieved and grateful if they actually manage to treat us like humans. It is outrageous!!

I think that's a slightly unfair interpretation of what they are saying. I'm very thankful I live in a politically stable, liberal, secular democracy- so is my husband.

India really needs to sort itself out - I have plenty of Indian colleagues, and every one agrees (all my indian colleagues in the office are male, but I have plenty who are women who I interact with in an offshore capacity).

I (and the colleagues I've spoken to) are angry that a country that can afford a space program, that has enormous universities, fantastic education and wealth, that can be so forward-thinking in some areas can let this happen in the rural parts of their country. It's a cultural attitude that needs to change - that rural communities are just like this. I understand that India is a huge place - but I was raised in a rural British community, and take offence at the 'bumpkin' stereotype.

I don't think withdrawing aid is the solution. I do think that applying great pressure to a country already greatly influenced by the UK surely has to help.

Wow, you found a very intense article here... it seems India is behind is feminism... punishing same-sex couples as if they are raping each other... sentencing the rape of a guilty party? This is like if I went into a time machine and traveled back hundreds of years back in America. I feel horrible for these women that are treated like objects of a man. The man's sisters are treated like simply an extension of him! It is almost like they do not acknowledge that women are people with feelings and emotions. It is not the fault of the women that their brother made his choices, it was his choice to elope with a higher class. I find it hard to believe that these women had to suffer from someone else crimes. Last time I check we make criminal pay the crime of what they did, not their families... unless of course your in an illegal group of people like the mafia. Perhaps these court groups in India are just another Mafia... sounds like something they would do. May these women be free from suffering. May they be protected by the supreme court.

It's not all India - it's a big place, and the differences between affluent Indians in the Capital, and poor rural families in the back of beyond is virtually unimaginable to a born and raised Brit

Actually, men are also punished for their families crimes - it's not just women, although it is women in this case.

I think it's worth pointing out just because things are quite so demonstrably worse in India, doesn't somehow excuse anything that happens here. Think of it this way, if the battle was completely won here, you can bet your ass we as a country would have a united front in condeming this sort of thing, and actually couple that with some sort of actual response that made the Indian government worry about losing trade contracts and access to our markets.

It's all part of the same issue.

Someone somewhere else said that part of this is that women are no more than property of the men. So to them this is like nothing more than taking another piece of property from him / rendering it unusable. Like a fine. And the value of women is in their virginity until they're married so to take that is rendering some property worthless. And the effect on the women is not the point, not considered, sort of thing. It's not considered a punishment on them at all because they are non sentient objects.

But that's not right is it. If it were that, why does it need to be gang rape? Why do the women need to be paraded around naked? For that matter, if the elders have such power, they could just decree these women unmarriagable, or I don't know sundered or something, and that would do the job, and nobody would need to touch them.

So why does it need to be a gang rape? Why the humiliation? That is for the women, isn't it? Is it because if there's going to be an opportunity to rape then everyone who wants a go should be allowed?

It seems to me that this "punishment" for the man is a thinly veiled opportunity to really mistreat some women and have a thoroughly good time. IYSWIM.

But then, that's to me, all of this is so alien to me that I probably have zero chance of understanding their genuine motivations with this. I can't help but think that maybe they aren't entirely what they might say they are though.

I think you are right Whirlpool. It's so much more than women being a possession of a man, although that is part of it. I also don't think that these women are being treated "like simply an extension of him". If that were the case he would be being gang raped and paraded around naked too.

Women get punished for men's behaviour all the time. Just look at how society treats rape and abuse victims. This is the more extreme end of the same spectrum.