Gang rapes, acid throwing, honor killings, domestic violence, dowry deaths, human trafficking, and the fear of being captured by religious extremists are just some of the fears that women in South Asia encounter daily.
In a 2011 poll by the Thompson Reuters Foundation, India (4th) and Pakistan (3rd) were ranked the most dangerous countries in the world for women to be born in, along with Congo (2nd), and Afghanistan (1st). Reuters asked 213 experts from five continents to rank the world’s nations on their overall perception of danger as well as six high-risk categories: “health threats, sexual violence, non-sexual violence, harmful practices rooted in culture, tradition and/or religion, lack of access to economic resources and human trafficking.”
“Any abuse committed against women and children around the world is actually a crime against humanity because men tend to forget that it is a woman that gives birth to them,” said Dr. Anita Nahal, education consultant and founder and chairperson of DiversityDiscover.com. “I have always questioned that how is it that, in a country like India, where many Hindu men pray to female goddesses such as Kali, Durga, Parvati, Laxmi, Parvati, Sita and so forth, can turn around and abuse women in their homes or outside?”
The focus on violence against women was reiterated when Pakistan and India were highlighted in the media once again. In October, a Taliban gunman shot 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai in the head because of her fight for girls to be educated.
On Dec. 16, 23-year-old Jyoti Singh Panday, a physiotherapy student, and her male friend were attacked on a private bus in New Delhi, India, after getting on what they believed was a scheduled bus but it was an off-duty bus. Panday’s friend was beaten unconscious while the six men raped her and also violated her with an iron rod, resulting in severe organ damage. The accused then left her and her friend, on the side of the road bleeding and naked.
According to Panday’s friend, passers-by left her unclothed and bleeding in the street for almost an hour and that, when police arrived, they spent a long time arguing about which police jurisdiction to take them.
“In countries of South Asia and many other countries, where patriarchy is strongly and deeply entrenched, people are afraid to either report a crime or speak out against a crime, lest the police capture them instead,” Nahal stated.
