Every 60 minutes, two women are raped in this country.

What is more horrendous is that 133 elderly women were sexually assaulted last year, according to the latest report
prepared by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

A total of 20,737 cases of rape were reported last year

 India is home to the largest number of sexual abused children in the World.
 It is estimated that one of every three girls and one of every five boys before the age of 18
have been sexually molested.
 A nationwide survey conducted by the Ministry of Women and Child development threw light on
the amount of Child Abuse that children suffer in our country.
 53% of the children surveyed in the survey reported Sexual Abuse.
 Sexual abuse of the children is highest at work followed by those at Institutional care.
 The number of cases of Sexual Harassment in India in 2002 were 10,155, an increase of 4.2 per
cent over the previous year (9746).
 There has been a steady increase in the number of women reporting sexual harassment, from
4,756 in 1995 to 11,024 in 2000.
 A survey by the National Women’s Commission reports that 46.58% of women report sexual
harassment in the work place; only about 3.54% report the matter to authorities; 1.4% reported
it to the police.
 In 2001, a five-state survey of workplace sexual harassment undertaken by Sakshi, a NGO in
New Delhi, reported that 80% of the respondents said sexual harassment existed in their work
place. Only 23% had heard of the Vishaka Guidelines; 66% of these said that the institutions had
not effectively implemented these guidelines. When they had been implemented, redress
seemed to be biased.
 In India every 26 minutes, a woman is molested
 In India every 34 minutes, a woman is raped.
 In India every 93 minutes, a woman is killed.
 Till December 2007, in Mumbai there had been 160 cases of rape reported and there were
about 1100 cases of molestation, eve teasing and other crimes against Women.
 In Delhi in 2007, there were 587 reported cases of rape. Of the people arrested in rape cases,
340 were neighbours, 94 were friends and 62 were relatives. Only in ten cases, the accused
were strangers

Every year in India, an estimated 500,000 female foetuses are aborted because they are female.

"A little girl can be sweeter (and badder) oftener than anyone else in the world. She can jitter
around, and stomp, and make funny noises that frazzle your nerves, yet just when you open your
mouth she stands there demure with that special look in her eyes. A girl is Innocence playing in the
mud, Beauty standing on its head, and Motherhood dragging a doll by the foot."
"A girl becomes a wife with her eyes wide open. She knows that those sweetest words, 'I take thee
to be my wedded husband,' really mean, 'I promise thee to cook three meals a day for 60 years;
thee will I clean up after; thee will I talk to even when thou art not listening; thee will I worry about,
cry over and take all manner of hurts from.'"
"A little girl can be sweeter (and badder) oftener than anyone else in the world. She
can jitter around, and stomp, and make funny noises that frazzle your nerves, yet just
when you open your mouth she stands there demure with that special look in her
eyes. A girl is Innocence playing in the mud, Beauty standing on its head, and
Motherhood dragging a doll by the foot."

- Alan Marshall Beck.

How thoughtful of Mr. Beck to employ his choicest words to describe the female
species. Indeed, it comes as a pleasant surprise to read such beautiful lines on a girl.
Why you ask? Well, don’t words such as, ‘kalmuhi’, ‘janam jali’, ‘kalank’, ‘bhoj’…ring
a bell?

Yes, go ahead, scoff. ‘These words weren’t used for us, we com from respectable
families…we are treated as princesses…’

Herein lies the problem. When we create a divide between ‘us’ and ‘them’. When we
turn our backs on the mass problems since we belong to the elite minority, since they
may not affect us. Why, there are some who don’t even know there is a problem
faced by women in India in the first place.

We can safely say that a majority of girls in India (and I shall not use the phrase ‘even
today’ since the change we see among the women community is still marginal) suffer
from the most cruel forms of discrimination and victims of highly heinous crimes. Yet,
where’s the problem, right?

We have failed to recognize a basic fact – all girls/women are the same. The only
difference, if there is, is that the level of discrimination faced will vary. It doesn’t
depend on whether the girl is rich/poor, literate/illiterate, her caste, her religion…
All these factors are negligible when you think of the various wrongdoings a
girl/woman needs to face through her life. Haven’t we heard of those ‘breaking news’
where a well-to-do family of doctors makes the woman abort her child four times as
the foetus was identified as a female all the four times? Oh that poor family, cheated
by the extra two words ‘fe’ four times! What is the difference between them and a
poor woman who works as a sweeper in residential buildings and is made to go
through the same ordeal? Respectable families, is it?

And the problems persist because, firstly, those who suffer have lost their voice to
speak put against a system that rides on money and caste, and religion and everything
that goes against India being a secular democratic republic. And secondly, those who
can raise a voice for the other women (read: all of us) are determined to live in that
same apathetic stupor we have since years, shutting our eyes in naivety as ‘this will
not happen to us.’
So, what are the problems exactly that we do not raise a voice against and have taken
it to be more of a natural occurrence than an atrocity committed against a fellow
human?

Let me throw some figures in here. In India, every 26 minutes a woman is molested
and every 34 minutes, a woman is raped. Do the maths. A total of 20,737 cases of
rape were reported last year. These numbers may surprise us but unfortunately they
don’t shock us anymore. Do we sit to think why such a sickeningly large number? Do
we believe the words our dear politicians often parrot out, trying to sound
knowledgeable, “It is the clothes the girls wear nowadays. Short skirts, revealing
blouses will incite any man.” How can girl’s blood not boil when she hears this as an
explanation as to why women are treated nothing but as a sexual object by men? I
doubt these very ‘knowledgeable’ politicians shall be able to explain the rape of
minors, as young as 2-year old. An innocent, pure infant incited them, isn’t it? Never
has it occurred that it is a problem with the mindset of individuals in this country and
also elsewhere about the image of women created and reinforced by time and again
through mass entertainment forms like movies, advertisements, TV soaps, music…

What’s the word used for Katrina’s dance number in the movie ‘Tees Maar Khan’? Yes,
item number. Its popular lingo today, girl = item/maal/boti. Almost all sexually
explicit jokes are based on women and their body. The extremely popular ‘Comedy
Circus’ is highly depraving to a woman, with its jokes and the language used. Par
example, ‘You think men have it easy? You're dead wrong, they have to work up a
sweat to keep taking out the belt and putting it back in again.’ Said in Hindi of
course, which makes it worse. Yes, it is a comedy show and I do enjoy a good laugh
but it need not come on the expense of a gender or caste for that matter. But clean
jokes aren’t cool, are they? The more you degrade women and pass them off as jokes;
the rape/molestation of women shall become more of a natural event.

Also, in a country that has the words ‘mulgi shikli, pragati zali’ (if the girl child is
educated, progress has taken place) neatly placed over rickshaws, billboards, the sex
ratio is a meagre 933 girls for 1000 boys and is slowly dipping towards the 800s. The
girl child is killed even before she can witness for herself the heaven and hell on
earth. Female fetuses dumped in garbage bins, just-born infant girls thrown into a
dark alley to be eaten by dogs, nibbled by rats, flushed down toilets, crushed under
the weight of tables/charpoys… its delicate body left to be mutilated, never to know
what Alan Beck meant when he says, ‘A girl is Innocence playing in the mud, Beauty
standing on its head, and Motherhood dragging a doll by the foot.’

But why should we feel outraged? We aren’t concerned with this, the problems of the
middle and the lower class. We are happy living in our elitist Gucci bubble of our life.
And the media has played a major role in this. Why the media? These are just two
problems, the tip of the iceberg as is said. But how much does the media make us
aware of this? It is done either in the form of sensationalization of a rape case, but to
make people aware of these issues would be give another trouble in their already
troubled lives, right? Who would want to listen or read or watch something that
educated us?

What dilemma do I face with this? We all face? As student of Bachelor of Mass Media,
we will be entering this very media world in less than five months. We want to earn
ourselves a living yes, but are we ready to use the media to bring even the slightest of
changes, however idealistic it may be? Or will be just one of those many faces who
will read out during prime time news, ‘which is the best item number of the year,
Munni or Sheela?’