A woman who was gangraped by four men in Bihar’s Araria district went to court for redress on July 10. She was arrested and charged with c...
A woman who was gangraped by four men in Bihar’s Araria district went to court for redress on July 10. She was arrested and charged with contempt of court and obstructing public servants from doing their duty. Her alleged crime: raising her voice and refusing to sign the written record of her statement to the magistrate before it was read out to her by two social workers. The 22-year-old reportedly cannot read. The two social workers have also been arrested. All three have been sent to jail 250 km away from Araria.
Multiple levels of institutional failure surround the woman. In the four days since the violent crime, she had been made to repeat her story over and over again to the police. She had no support from her family and no access to a mental health professional. Her identity had been revealed in the local press, violating laws about reporting sexual violence. Finally, she was denied even the right to hear a written statement containing her own words. The court’s action compounds the various ways in which her person and her will have been violated in the last few days.
Sadly, this episode is not an aberration. For thousands of women in India, reporting rape...
