What comes to your mind when I say the word rape?
“I was 5 years old when I first saw my uncle naked, and he made me take my clothes off in the confines of my pretty pink-walled bedroom. I am 35 years old now and I still remember the pain. That’s what a rape is. Not my clothes, or my vagina. Rape is a power and a pain that doesn’t go away. That’s what comes to mind when I hear ‘rape’” – the account of a victim who was first sexually molested when she was a child.
The instances of rape have always been undisputably scary, but numbers and statistics making cold statements about the incidents are desensitizing us, by the day, to the gravity of these attacks.
The Rape India Project is a crowd-sourced platform that posts pictures of places where rape incidents have taken place in India, and they are downright chilling. These cases are gut-wrenching and sickening, but the awareness and importance of women’s safety are painfully important at times like these in our society.
Some of these instances have occurred to children within four walls of their classrooms, to women in cars in the comfort of their trusted partners, and even in university campuses in spite of being accompanied by their friends who have been mercilessly beaten up for protecting them. In a day and age where we are making light-year advancements in technology and brimming with pride about our achievements in the human race, why are we still moving backward when it comes to protecting women in our society?
1. “A 2nd-year history department student of Jadavpur University was dragged into the men’s hostel on campus and molested.”
2. “A 22-year-old girl was allegedly raped by her boyfriend in his car on Monday evening.”
3. “A child studying in the first grade was punished with ‘isolation’ in another room of the same school, during which two men, at least one among them reportedly being a teacher in the same school, allegedly sexually abused her.”
4. “While the accused was released on bail within few months of his arrest, the traumatised girl could not attend school for nearly 6 months after the incident.”
5. “She was found the next morning covered in blood by her mother who is a street dweller.”
You can contribute to the project by finding information about incidents in your locality and submit pictures of places with instructions on how to send them on their official page.
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