“I want to live,” said “Braveheart” to her mother and brother.
“Braveheart,” one of the nicknames given to an unidentified 23-year-old woman, was in an intensive care unit after six men brutally gang-raped and attacked her on a moving bus in Delhi, India, two weeks ago.
They targeted her because she was traveling alone with a male friend to whom she was not married or related. The men harassed her at first to punish her and when her friend stood up to them, they assaulted him and took her to the back of the bus and raped and beat her. More than an hour later, they threw them, unconscious, off the bus, where a passerby found them and called for help.
On Thursday, Braveheart was transported to a hospital in Singapore because she needed a multi-organ transplant and she was suffering from brain injuries and lung and abdomen infections.
Her wish, her hope to live makes the news of her death that much harder to hear, that much harder to comprehend.
The six men who attacked her have been indicted and they now will be charged with murder. But it is little consolation.
In a city where rape—a vastly underreported crime—is reported every 18 hours and in a country where there were more than 24,000 reported rape cases in 2011, Braveheart’s ordeal is not unusual.
When many women routinely kill themselves after being harassed, groped, or raped by men, it’s not even unusual that she is dead.
In early December, a 16-year-old girl committed suicide after a man tried to hold her against her will on her way home from school. In mid-December, a 17-year-old girl set herself on fire and died from the burns after a boy in the area repeatedly harassed her. In late December, a 17-year-old girl killed herself after she was allegedly gang-raped and then pressured by police to drop the case and marry one of her attackers.
It’s also not unusual that her male friend was beaten up for standing up for her. Many men are routinely hurt and even murdered for challenging street harassment. A father told two young men to stop harassing and following his daughter and the men beat him up. A 30-year-old man stood up to young men he observed street harassing girls during a procession. Later, in retaliation, they stabbed him to death. A 20-year-old man confronted a group of boys who were harassing his female friend and stabbed him to death, too.
What is unusual about Braveheart’s story is the outcry her rape, her fight to live, and now her death, have sparked.
Every day since her case became public, hundreds and then thousands of people marched, protested, and held vigils in Delhi and in other cities across India. Even when police prohibited gatherings of more than five people, protestors would not be deterred and stood up to water cannons and attacks. Since her death, even more have taken place.
What I also hope will be unusual about her story is that real change will occur to make India safer for women.
Over the last few months, because gender violence is such an obvious problem in India, various promising government initiatives have been announced to address sexual harassment, especially in public places, as many see that as a potential precursor to rape, just as it was in the case of Braveheart.
In Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut town, the police started posting photos of street harassers as a way to shame them and deter future harassment incidents. In Madhya Pradesh, the Chief Minister announced in November that anyone found guilty of street harassment would be denied a passport and driver’s license. In Guwahati, the police force introduced a special all-women division in November to focus on street harassment and assault.
Most important, in November, India’s Supreme Court acknowledged that sexual harassment is a rampant problem, especially on the streets and on public transportation, and one that negatively impacts the lives of the harassed persons. They issued a country-wide standard for addressing the problem.
In Delhi specifically, over the past week, many protest leaders have met with police and government officials and these are some of the proposed measures. 1) More police night patrols; 2) More investigation of bus drivers and their assistants; 3) Banning buses with tinted windows or curtains; 4) Posting photos, names and addresses of convicted rapists on an official website; 5) setting up a committee to speed up trials of sexual assault.
In a meeting with police, the group I Stand for Safe Delhi said they proposed additional measures, such as sensitization training for the police force, crime mapping in the city, and more female police officers.
In November, India’s Supreme Court acknowledged that sexual harassment is a rampant problem, especially on the streets and on public transportation, and one that negatively impacts the lives of the harassed persons. They issued a country-wide standard for addressing the problem.
Street harassment and rape are about a lack of respect for women and about abuse of power though and until there is a shift in how women are viewed and treated, these measures will not be enough, though they are a good start.
There are two other measures that I hope can help create that shift.
The International Center for Research on Women runs a successful program in India called Parivartan. It targets 10 to 16 year old boys in Mumbai and uses the popular sport cricket to challenge them to question traditional notions of manhood in their society and teach them about respecting women and girls and preventing violence against them. In 2013, this program will launch in Delhi. It is important to change the mentality of young men so they learn to respect women.
Because so often the response to men harassing and raping women is measures restricting women’s ability to be in public, the Indian group Blank Noise has launched a #SafeCityPledge to encourage women to be in public. The more women there are in public places, the more people will be used to seeing them there and not challenge their presence, and the safer those places become for everyone. I agree.
So, what is your #SafeCityPledge? What will you do to help make your community safer?
