RAPE A WORLDWIDE ISSUE

                                     RAPE A WORLDWIDE ISSUE

In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly embraced Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It aims to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls, ensure equal opportunity and eliminate discriminatory laws, policies and practices”. Most of the governments have committed and recommitted to ending violence against women and girls, yet global statistics on sexual assault against women are on the rise. Despite the attention on the issue of sexual violence are not only on the national but international level, the problem is only getting worse. Human Right Watch has identified this issue as a high level which needs immediate action, they have asked for laws that discriminate against women to be repealed, provide protection, eliminate police bias against female victims and also to eliminate judicial biases against women. These measures cannot be just limited to being enacted, it needs to make an impact in changing attitudes and the women/victims need supporters.

The UN report’s data has made it evident that rape and other forms of sexual violence have been increasing but the cases reported vary at a low percentage, country to country. The United States reports only 16% while in South Africa it’s as low as only 3%. Rape is a mammoth issue that plagues the world. It is not specific to one country and neither to any race, gender, age, or financial status. According to government data in India, a rape occurs every 15 minutes in the country. The reason why its one of the most underreported crimes is due to the many stigmas that go along with it leading to the victim feeling victimized.

The fact that even international action to prevent sexual violence hasn’t made any prominent impact, is not surprising since a country’s judicial system is often against women who make complaints. Even in Pakistan, police often refuse to register a complaint and in Peru, women have had to issue summons to their abusers through the police. In Jordan, women victims are put in prison in the name of protective custody. With these examples, one can make out that most countries have a hostile attitude towards the victims. Sexual violence against boys is quite prevalent in many countries, a study finds that there are almost 21% of sexual assaults against boys in India, 8% in Chile, 17% in Rwanda. The study also says that in South Africa there is 9.6% of men victims harassed by their gender. Therefore, as mentioned earlier, it is an assault that exists for all.  

                                                             

Rape is one of the most appalling incidents that can happen to a human being and yet, the attitude towards it is quite evasive. It needs to change, the attitude and mentality towards such heinous acts need to be made aware, sensitized and changes need to happen with a bottom-up approach as well as a top-down one. The taboos attached to such acts need to be cut off, society needs to change, the systems need to change and become more involved and take actions against this huge problem.

                                                                 BY:- NIMESH SHARMA