I’m proud of the beauty & ancient culture of our country, India. I’m not proud of the fact that in a recent Thomson Reuters Foundation survey, India has been described as the most dangerous country in the world for women. In 2011, when a similar poll was last conducted, India ranked 4th behind Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, & Pakistan.
The world’s five most dangerous countries for women:
Ranking in 2011 : Afghanistan, Congo, Pakistan, India, Somalia
Ranking in 2018 : India, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Saudi Arabia
Between 26 March & 04 May, the Thomson Reuters Foundation surveyed 548 experts on women’s issues around the world, including academics, health workers, policy-makers and non-governmental organization activists.
Respondents were asked to consider the following criteria: health care, cultural traditions, discrimination, sexual violence, non-sexual violence and human trafficking. And India came in as the worst of half of them.
India’s National Commission for Women chairperson, Rekha Sharma, rejected the ranking, saying the sample size was too small, according to the Times of India.
“There is no way that we could be ranked number 1 in such a survey. The countries that have been ranked after India have women who are not even allowed to speak in public,” Sharma said.
The report noted that reported cases of crimes against women rose 83% between 2007 & 2016, where there were 4 cases of rape every hour.
But India barely fares better in other studies that rank its treatment of women. It placed 131st of 152 countries in the Georgetown Institute’s global ranking of women’s inclusion and well-being.
India’s National Crime Records Bureau reported 338,954 crimes against women – including 38,947 rapes – in 2016, the most recent government data available. That’s up from 309,546 reported incidents of violence against women in 2013.
High-profile attacks on Indian women have given a shock to this nation of 1.3 billion in recent years. In 2012, the gang-rape of a 23-year-old student in Delhi who died from her injuries caused public outrage. The incident helped amend India’s criminal law, which intensified the definition of sexual offenses against women, including stacking, acid attacks, & travelism.
The study sparked a political debate when India’s main opposition leader Rahul Gandhi was criticized on Tuesday for tweeting that the prime minister “tiptoes around his garden making yoga videos” in reference to Modi’s recent fitness video – “India leads Afghanistan, Syria” What a shame for our country Saudi Arabia in rape and violence against women! ”
His supporters quickly forget Narendra Modi’s old tweet, commenting on the final version of the poll, dismissing the fact that India was fourth in 2011.
NDTV journalist Nidhi Razdan tweeted, “Moral of the story: Ranking is not the issue here, they are absurd.” The safety of women “has been an issue under both governments for years.”
But this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued an executive order allowing the death penalty to a convict of sexually assaulting a child under 12 years of age.
But strict laws apparently cost little to save 34 girls from atrocities and rapes in the state of Bihar, India earlier this year.
This is the dark side of the Indian story. The country can now be known for its startup and space program, in addition to its growing consumer economy that everyone wants a piece of. But for millions of women, or nearly half the population, safety and respect is a distant dream.
Deb's Blog 