Molestation or sexual abuse of girls has become an almost daily episode in India these days. If one goes through the newspaper, one would find at least one incident of rape or molestation each day. These are the few that come to notice, out of many that are left unheard.
One of my friends has also been molested once. She was out with one of her friends that day. It was 10:30 pm. He dropped her on the street outside of her hostel. While walking back, she suddenly felt someone’s presence behind her. She turned back and found a man standing there. That man pushed her towards the wall and started touching her private parts. She somehow managed to push him back and threatened to call the police. She then starting walking towards the hostel. But he seemed least affected by that threat. He started to follow her again. This time, gaining some courage, she took off her footwear and started to beat him and asked him to leave and then finally ran back to her hostel.
Narrating this story to the people around me I tried to find out the answers to the questions arising in my mind.
Why do such incidents happen? Who is actually responsible? What can we all do to stop these incidents?
The answer that I have received from most of the people was that my friend should not have gone out at night. According to them, if girls will stay at home incidents will reduce automatically. Some even believed that she must be wearing short clothes and that’s why this happened to her.
I was shocked by the reactions of these people. Instead of blaming the culprit they were pointing out the mistakes, if they could really be called mistakes, of my friend.
Though a few agreed that it was not the girl’s fault, but it was a crime on the side of that man, they also didn’t have any solution to it.
Well! Molestation and rape have become big issues in our country today. But our people, our society still find it to be a fault on the part of the girls. I personally believe that instead of asking are daughters to not to go out at night, we should teach our son to respect women. We should make our boys and men aware and educate them. They should know that girls are not mere toys or puppets to play with. They are also humans like every male and they should be respected.
It is in our hands to make our country rape-free and thus providing a safe environment for our daughters.