The case of 23-year-old Jyoti Singh – known as “Nirbhaya” or “the fearless one”– who was brutally raped on a moving bus in Delhi on December 16, 2012 and died of her injuries 13 days later, provoked unprecedented protests in India, and put harassment and violence against women and girls in India into the international spotlight.
Thousands of women and men in Delhi and in other cities across India and the world came out onto the streets to protest against the prevalence of violent acts perpetrated against women and the fact that they are very often not investigated, while those responsible go unpunished. Most attacks are never even reported as women fear humiliation and degrading treatment by the police as well as social stigma, where the survivor is often blamed for the crime.
The protesters highlighted the daily harassment of women on the streets, on buses, on their way to school or work; domestic violence; rape and sexual attacks by strangers or family members; dowry killings; and acid attacks. In India marital rape is still unrecognised and huge numbers of girls never even have the chance to live, as it is estimated that thousands of female foetuses are killed every year.
It is a telling indictment that too often women in India are viewed as commodities, controlled and treated as property. This, along with rape and so-called ‘honour’ killings – which routinely take place in some parts of India as the penalty for marrying out of choice outside the diktats of caste and community elders – are manifestations of patriarchal attitudes that continue to devalue women and keep them subjugated.