Rape victim

Similar incidents have been reported from different places quite a few times in the recent past. Crime against women is rising while its 'containment' is still restricted to condemnation and expression of sympathy for the victims, or government pledge to be tough on the criminals. The eve teasers and rapists are taking advantage of an inadequate social response to the issue and lax enforcement of the law, to top it off.

It is a sad truth that the women in the most vulnerable group cannot always even seek legal aid. They have to depend on so-called arbitration often dominated by village headmen or religious leaders not motivated or competent enough to judge the gravity of such crimes. When a rape victim commits suicide out of a sense of anguish, the crime committed against her amounts to a culpable homicide. However, poverty and helplessness of the victim's family in the face of intimidation often stand in their way of seeking justice.

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Village arbitration has traditionally been a reliable platform for settling disputes. But it is being increasingly abused by local influentials.. The village headmen's inability or unwillingness to mete out justice was reflected in the latest case in which they thought that only 20 lashes were a punishment for such a grave crime.

So a change in outlook alongside tightening the noose of the law are needed to stop oppression on women. Society must not look upon a rape victim as another hapless woman falling prey to beastly lechery; rather it must come forward to create the conditions in which women would feel secure. To begin with, it has to be ensured that the perpetrators of this crime do not go unpunished.