By Shreena Thakore:
No Country For Women‘s digital campaign ‘What If We Treated All Crimes Like We Treat Sexual Assault?’ uses humour to illustrate the problematic responses to cases of sexual assault. Each piece satirizes a different type of victim-blaming by depicting how ridiculous these rhetorics would sound if applied to any other crime.
The most common responses to sexual assault broadly fall into 5 main categories:
Such arguments trivialize sexual assault, delegitimize its significance, and/or straightaway dismiss it. They add to the existing stigma that survivors experience and prevent a critical and informed inspection of the crime.
Irate pirate
Falsely accusing men of rape is a real and significant problem in India. Also false accusations of dowry. Imagine the thousands of innocent men, brothers and fathers imprisoned and shamed because a vengeful and wicked women. We must be as vigilant of women misusing the law as we should be of implementing laws for women’s safety.
D Gill
Yes and it is a tragedy that it happens but all laws are misused at some point by bad people, which is another subject all together. No need to bring this up constantly. Just as many people are accused of other crimes to which they are innocent. Why is this particular situation brought up constantly on pages talking about rape and victim blaming? You seem a lot more concerned by the few false allegations than the actual victims. And why? For someone to be charged with a crime, evidence has to be present. An allegation is harsh, yes, but no one gets CHARGED with a crime without EVIDENCE. But a victim has to live with what happened to them and the likelihood for justice is such cases is very minimal. So pls put your concern where it actually matters.
Irate pirate
I thought about bringing it up here because victims of false accusations are victims too. Who are stigmatised, lose their livelihoods, whose families go through unbelievable torture. It takes as long as a five years to clear up a name. Five years of no livelihood and shame. India is the only country where “rape on the promise of marriage ” is a bookable offence. Basically that’s consensual sex. Believe me, the media is always on the side of the alleged victim. No one want to hear the story of the boys and men. I’m a woman and abhor sexual violence and abuse. But I would first fight for gender neutral laws and a quick and efficient justice system. That would bring meaningful closure to victims of rape as well as victims of false accusations.
ItsJustMe
What if courts treated all cases like it treats rape cases
Accuser – My son is dead and X did it
Court – Mr X, Prove that you did not do it or life imprisonment / death penalty
Accuser – My house was robbed and my neighbor did it, he took
Court – Your neighbor is hereby ordered to compensate for the stolen items and an extra 5 Lakh as legal fees, he/she will serve 5 years in prison unless he/she can prove they did not do it
Accuser – The Prime Minister of India is corrupt
Court – Prime Minister is sentenced to 7 years in prison unless he can prove he is not corrupt
(The very highly praised rape law is anti constitutional. It is no way fair to the accused, if he must prove he is innocent and not assumed innocent until proven so)
Gagan
Great job. This country needs some evil people like us who expose the truth hidden behind-the-scenes of Great Indian Culture. I myself has experienced the discussions of elderly people with pride on their faces when they taught a girl how to be a slave.