Massive protests in India as women march to ‘reclaim streets’ after doctor’s brutal rape and murder

[IwantToRetire]

Tens of thousands of women took to the streets across India on Wednesday night in protest over the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at a prominent state-run hospital in West Bengal.

The largest of the protests took place in Kolkata itself, where women armed with placards, candles and the Indian national flag ushered in the country’s 78th Independence Day at midnight by demanding justice for the killing of the 31-year-old female resident at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

The doctor cannot be named due to India’s laws protecting the identity of rape victims, even in death. Her partially naked body was discovered by students last Friday morning, with an autopsy later confirming she had been sexually assaulted.

Women at the “Reclaim the Night” protest told The Independent that they wanted swift justice for the victim – some are calling for the perpetrator or perpetrators to be given the death penalty – but also a wider reckoning on violence against women and the safety of doctors in the country.

Riya Banerjee, a 22-year-old student, said she had walked more than 5km to take part in the protest after roads became impassable for traffic, as it was “important for everyone to step out of their comfort [zone] and raise their voices”.

https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/india/kolkata-protests-doctor-rape-murder-case-b2596664.html includes video of the march

Youve worked in those departments too I gather

I know the country very well. In fact, I am in India now.

Can you suggest more effective actions, Lentilweaver? Anything we can to do ahow support for Indian women?

Thank you for creating this thread. I have tried to avoid reading the details because it would break my heart too much.

I couldn't sleep properly for days after the Nirbhaya case in 2012. Felt physically nauseous.

I hope the protests will lead to some improvements but it often feels like nothing changes. Women barely have any secure single-sex spaces. There's so much crime and corruption in India. 😔

My mother in law was raped by several Indian men while she was travelling in Goa with her DH during the 70s. They reported it to the police but were ignored and then felt they were at risk from retribution so they left for another state (and then home). She was hugely impacted by this and never really recovered.
So I think rape culture and hushing it up is nothing recent for India, I think now women are just beginning to speak up.

Awful, IGuessIllBeTheFirst.

That's horrible. Very sorry to hear about what happened to your mother, IGuessIllbetheFirst

I work with a number of Indian men and women (not in the UK) and I’ve had to run special training courses for the whole company to change the way the women are treated by the men - we’ve even got a couple of HR investigations ongoing even now.
It’s unchanging and must be deeply ingrained. Our female team members are treated like non-people by some male members - intellect is irrelevant, rules are irrelevant. If you don’t think women have worth you won’t treat them like they do.
It has been like banging my head against a wall.
I say this as someone who married to someone of Indian descent.

I wasn't aware of where the rape took place - paucity of coverage e.g. Sky flagged up the demonstrations but then did not provide any information, only a picture. Yes, the issue transcends all parties. There is a misogynistic culture in India which makes me want to weep for Indian women, whose interests and needs are of so little importance to most politicians and officials.

Indeed, the Kolkata rape looks likely to be an act of revenge against a whistle-blower.

One newspaper reported that a hospital cleaner had been arrested, whereas earlier reports seem to say that more than one man was involved.

But as others have said, even if it was an "act of revenge" the reality is that sexual violence against women is an act of revenge against women. An act that makes clear in men's minds women are lesser.

So whether the head of state is female or not, will have no impact on men thinking rape is their right.

Great, then that must give you insight into the next best options.
Or is fatalism the advice.

My DD and DS have family in India. When visiting as a young woman my DD was furious that she was not allowed out alone, or to go where she wanted. I applauded this as the one sensible thing my ex was doing. When my DSS took DP and DGD to India I, and DD and DS, warned that DGD should not be left alone at any time. On return DSS and his DP reported that DGD was clearly a magnet for young men who were very keen to separate her from her parents - which they were very careful not to either allow or leave opportunity for. India is not a good place for women.

During the Hippy Trail days, there were haircurling stories from women travellers, they were supposed to deal with it as part of the cultural experience.
Drilled holes in womens hotel rooms walls so they could be spied on was written about on lonely planet all the time.

I think that is rather a misleading insinuation as though this only happened / happens in India.

Anyone who reads newspapers / news web sites will see nearly every day stories of women where their landlords, pool staff, pub toilets, find that holes have been drilled to allow men to spy on them.

However ever since the european countries took up holidaying and treking in other countries, too often they failed and still failed to recognise they were visitors to another culture.

This isn't to say rape of sexual assualt is okay, but not taking time to learn about where you are, and how life is lived, is not only arrogant but likely to cause problems.

Thats your interpretation. The thread is about India.

Your post sounds a bit victim-blaming @IwantToRetire - maybe you didn’t mean that but why do you assume the women that I and @Omlettes were referring to were arrogant and causing problems? My mother in law was the kindest, peaceful most respectful woman that you could imagine, what she endured impacted the rest of her life.

Rape as an act of sexual violence towards women occurs in every society & country - not just India. But it seems to still be acceptable in India or at least men still think they can get away with it, and that is what I thought you started this thread about?

Within 20 years this is what life will be like in the UK too.

@Oldseagull I agree with you. I advised my friends with daughters to sign them up for martial arts classes. I got the feeling it will get much much worse for women. I teach my son ( teen) how import consent is and that it needs to be explicit.

*important

Just to repeat, that way you wrote it made it sound like this was a specific problem that only happened in India.

You may not have intended that, but that is how it came over.

Again just to repeat, the wording implied men peeping through holes drilled in walls only happened in India.

This happens all round the world, as unfortunately does rape when women are travelling.

I must have missed the latest gang rape and murder of a doctor in a UK hospital.

Men can be violent rapist scum, no matter their colour or culture. But to pretend that some cultures do not have a normalised brutality against women that would shock most western countries, does nobody any favours.

That is true, one should know the customs of where one is going. It does not explain the number of rapes, esp. of low caste women and women who are debt-slaves or married to a debt-slave but also to women who are perceived as 'available', which happen in India, nor the attitude that the women are not important and that the lives of the rapists should not be wrecked because of this 'mistake'. And, yes, I know it happens in European countries, and indeed in Scotland not long ago, too. That attitude needs challenging wherever it turns up.
But if travelling in a country where unaccompanied women/Western women (who everyone there 'knows' are next-door to prostitutes) are fair game for rape and sexual assault it makes sense to take careful precautions i.e. not travelling alone, never being anywhere alone, or alone in a crowd, and if one has young daughters to chaperone them constantly, just as the local girls are chaperoned (explain to DD why this needs to be the case, too).

To you.
Whats with this critical nitpicking. I've made it clear it wasnt, explained the context which is overtly clear, but you are still banging on about it. And its not just on this thread either.

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2023-12-13/debates/788281AF-6F94-474B-91FD-9767009A0F3E/SexualHarassmentOfSurgeonsAndOtherMedicalProfessionals

'Professor Phoenix found that more than 6,500 rapes and sexual assaults had been committed in hospitals in England and Wales over a period of nearly four years. Some were against children under 13, yet in a mere 265 cases—a minute 4.1%—was anyone known to have been charged. In total, 2,088 rapes and 4,451 sexual assaults—6,539 cases—were recorded by police forces from January 2019, and one in seven of those, or 266 a year, took place on hospital wards. As the researchers at the Women’s Rights Network sent freedom of information requests to 43 police forces across the UK and 35 responded, the figures are, in truth, even higher and even more shocking.'

Rosie Duffield on sexual assault in UK hospitals.