The gruesome rape and hanging of two teenage girls in the populous Uttar Pradesh state again proves how women have become the biggest victims of India’s sanitation crisis.
The two girls were going to the fields to defecate when they went missing on Tuesday night.
Nearly half-a-billion Indians - or 48% of the population - lack access to basic sanitation and defecate in the open.
The situation is worse in villages where, according to the WHO and Unicef, some 65% defecate in the open. And women appear to bear the brunt as they are mostly attacked and assaulted when they step out early in the morning or late in the evening.
Several studies have shown that women without toilets at home are vulnerable to sexual violence when travelling to and from public facilities or open fields.
The evidence is glaring.
A senior police official in Bihar said some 400 women would have “escaped” rape last year if they had toilets in their homes.
Women living in urban slums of Delhi reported specific incidents of girls under 10 “being raped while on their way to use a public toilet” to researchers of a 2011 study funded by WaterAid and DFID-funded Sanitation and Hygiene Applied Research for Equity.
Women in one slum said when they went out in the open to defecate, local boys stared at them, made threats, threw bricks and stabbed them. Others said they faced “lewd remarks, physical gestures and rape when they relieved themselves in the bushes”.
“We have had one-on-one fights with thugs in order to save our daughters from getting raped. It then becomes a fight that either you [the thug] kill me to get to my daughter or you back off,” a helpless mother told the researchers, pointing out to the chilling frequency of such assaults.
By one estimate, some 300 million women and girls in India defecate in the open. Most of them belong to underprivileged sections of the society and are too poor to afford toilets. The two girls from Badaun, who reportedly belonged to the lower-rung of a group of castes called Other Backward Classes (OBCs), were among them and paid with their lives.
“This vicious, horrifying attack illustrates too vividly the risks that girls and women take when they don’t have a safe, private place to relieve themselves,” says said Barbara Frost, chief executive of WaterAid. “Ending open defecation is an urgent priority that needs to be addressed, for the benefit of women and girls who live in poverty and without access to privacy and a decent toilet.”
The entire sub-continent needs a shake up that includes both India, Pakistan, and other neighboring nations. Human lives have nose-dived while desensitizing of the public continues to the point that people don’t even shrug anymore because events like this have become frequent news. It’s truly very sad, and a low point for the best of creations. As for the article posted, basic necessities should be met, and made first priority of the Government. When people feel dignified, and their privacy intact, they may contribute to the society positively.
Dalits have always been a target by the upper caste Hindus in spite of their special status in India for the last 5-6 decades. sad and unfortunate.
one most famous victim was Phoolan Devi who exacted her revenge by killing her perpetrators after joining and then forming her own Dacoit group.
There has been a political war in UP between the Dalits [Mayawati] and Yadavs [Mulayam Singh, whose son is the current Chief Minister]. when Mayawati was in power until last year, she took revenge by sending a lot of Mulayam Singh’s party’s people in jail.
last year, Mulayam Singh’s party won the elections in UP and since then the goons from his party [Yadavs] started rampaging. his party [a GhunDa party] has one edge. whenever he is in power, he recruits a tons of Yadavs in the police force and who back them up in criminal endeavors.
it’s strange that his party [Samajwadi Party] is very sympathetic towards Muslims of UP. SP gets Muslims votes en block which helps them win the provincial elections. in return, Muslims get a lot of goodies. SP is very popular among Muslims in UP and they nicknamed Mulayam Singh as Maulana Mulayam Singh.
the other reason why there are more rapes ?] in UP is because this state is the most populated state in India with much lower literacy rate and much higher poverty levels along with strong caste system. imo
in this gang rape case, the perpetrators are all Yadavs while the victims are Dalits.
but amongst all these solutions to reduce rape and protect women–curfews, toilets, the way they dress, etc…why is TEACHING BOYS NOT TO RAPE NOT A SOLUTION!!!
First notice how it is playing out in the western media. Its in India, so its about toilets. If it were Pakistan, it is Islam.
That said, we all know it has nothing to do with toilets. This has every thing to do with the way we bring up boys. It has to do with the way we look at violence against women. There needs to be a paradigm shift in the way we deal with women in our culture. It is never ok to beat them, and don’t give me the BS about islam allowing it. We all know what Prophet Mohammed ( SAWS ) last sermon was about.
True. The author is just looking at one aspect of it that because females use unguarded facilities, and that renders them accessible to sickos. And for other aspects, the teachers need to be taught first before they can teach the boys, and public at-large.
We all see the bigotry, it doesn’t help the cause when some of our own people get on the bandwagon and become self-hating ambassadors who parrot the same lines. On the whole, what you said is exactly what the muslims need for sure, that is to follow what Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) told us, and a need for proper education on urgent basis so the misconceptions can be obliterated.
Calling a spade a spade is ok. There are several reasons for rape. Foremost is education. Secondary reasons could be several - cultural, misinterpretation and misuse of Religion. One should not shy away from accepting whatever is the root cause. Even if one of the root causes could be something close to ones heart.
For example, the upper caste folks historically have abused the lower caste. Considering them less than human. In the south, a low caste person say 100 yrs ago could not let his shadow overlap with that of upper caste. So while rape may not have been as common the low caste was “raped” in other ways by taking away their dignity.
In the north these “religious” customs took a more physical form.
I don’t understand why those who do self analysis and point out the flaws in their system are branded as self hating. We need more of such analysis. Not less.
Tbh the Western media treats us differently, true. Some is unfair but some is our fault. When Delhi rape happened Indian streets were full of protest, when Malala got attacked all I heard was how it was a Western conspiracy. That doesn’t help.
Saying that, BBC is a massive joke. Look at their Asia page. Trash about Pakistan, trash about China (a near superpower now, India does not compare to China, not many countries do).
Eg, IPL fixing. Took BBC a week to register it, yet Umar Akmal gets arrested for a traffic violation and its headline news in two hours.
Didn’t realize BBC has become a joke. One thing to remember is the divide and rule mentality. Today India may be the favorite. Tomorrow Pakistan. Key is for Asian countries to foster good relationships among themselves. Rather than look to the BBC s to decide for them who is good and who is not.
Too often, when western media favors country A, A is thrilled and B gets riled up. Here A and B being India or Pakistan - in any order. By reacting this way, we concede control to the BBC s to define us.
