Suman Prasad Kushwaha
I don’t know what it really is. I don’t know how the rape victims feel either. I sometimes wonder whom to blame. Whom do you think we should blame: the stupid culture (that provokes rape), the law (that fails to provide justice), the society (that fails to educate a child with the simple thing that rape is a heinous crime and the same society that fails again to protect the victims) or the rapist (who is mentally ill and completely inhumane)? Forget about the blaming part! Can you imagine what the victims actually go through? Rape affects the victims not only physically but also mentally. The world which was beautiful earlier turns to be nothing but horror show for her. Every woman feels unsafe and the fear really never goes off.
“I just want to sleep. A coma would be nicer or amnesia. Anything, just to get rid of this, these thoughts, whispers in my mind. Did he rape my head, too?” says a rape victim, as quoted by Laurie Halse Anderson.
Cause of rape
Poor and monstrous mentality of society. I believe there is no any reason that explain why rape occurs. Women do not get raped because they were not careful enough. Women get raped because someone raped them.
Ways to stop rape
Rape is increasing day by day and the problem with the people who deal with rape is that they try to educate women about how to defend themselves. What really needs to be done is teaching men not to rape. Go to the source and start there.
“Beauty provokes harassment,” the law says, but it looks through men’s eyes when deciding what provokes it. If, we men, could look at rape through women’s eyes, trust me, we would bleed through our eyes. Claims provoking a potential rapist or perpetrator through short clothes, tight jeans, drinking, smoking, make-up or flirting are mere myths to justify their devilish act. What we should do is stop believing in such bullshit and myths straightaway. There are a lot of such myths existing in our society and people believe them.
I would also want to talk about another myth: people believe that if they could avoid walking through the dark alleys and returning home on time, they would avert rape. It is also a myth because rape can occur at any time, any place and with anyone. Most of the time the rapists are not strangers.
Talking about punishment, I support Hadd of Zina given by Almighty Allah through his last messenger Prophet which is stoning to death for the married, or a flogging of 100 lashes and deportation for the unmarried as mentioned in the Holy Quran. Married or not. they must be given death punishment. There is similar punishment in the Holy Bible where the victim is protected by all resources and the rapist stoned to death at the gates of a city. Brutal punishment is required where we see increasing rape cases. The Arab countries have very strict rules against rape and that is one of the major reasons these countries have the least rape cases in the world. In Saudi Arabia, rapists are beheaded without any delay. There are high ranking officers called “Mutawas” who keep roaming around and ensuring women’s safety. Grabbing someone’s hand without consent is also a sexual offence here.
We hear people say, “She is fifteen, above the age of consent, and he is seventeenth, still a boy,” in every conversation. She’s “a young woman.” Words are not small things” says Fredrik Backman. We must change the way we see things, the way we understand and of course the way we speak, and the words we use for victims and culprits and in a rape situation.
Education and awareness programs should be carried out in each and every school and college of the country more often. If possible, I believe including sex education as an additional course in the study curriculum of primary as well as secondary level is an essential thing to do to increase awareness.
Encourage media literacy. Use the phrase ‘He raped her’ instead of saying ‘She was raped’. Ask men to behave themselves instead of asking women to be responsible. By questioning the victims, we make them feel like it was their fault. Start questioning the rapist and their families, the society he lives in, and the school he attended. Its every one’s fault. Social media and the influential personalities with greater followers should speak up and we should support them in a way that could pressurize the government.
Governments should focus on rural development and poverty alleviation. Some studies say that if we control migration of people, we can control rape to a greater extent. It’s not that only people who migrate rape. But in some cases, it happens when the people living in rural areas migrate to cities where their brains are full of misconceptions. It is said that if a person stays in his own village with his own people maybe, he will not be a rapist because if you stay with a literate family, it can guide you with many things.
Rape also occurs at one’s home and by own family members. I also strongly believe that parents of a rapist are equal culprit and so is the society he lives in. Sometimes it’s friends who give wrong guidance.
Porn, in some cases, is the reason of rape. Porn contents display women as sex objects. Pornography is used and imitated in more than 41% of the rape cases. Dr. Victor Cline conduct a research that shows how consumers, who become addicted to pornographic materials, begin to nurture a craving to explicit and end up desiring to act out what they have seen. It also pressurises the porn industry to make more explicit content to fulfil the consumer’s demand and it results into human trafficking, sex trade, child abuse, etc. Porn stars go through much pain and they are forced to give a consent for money. Use of cocaine and other drugs in their private parts to avert pain is a common practice in shooting for more explicit content. Nowadays porn stars are also stepping forward to talk about behind-the-scenes happenings, which they describe as ‘brutal’ acts.
Two doctors have noted in their research-based book, Pornography and Sexual Aggression, that “certain (aggressive) forms of pornography can affect aggressive attitudes toward women and can desensitize an individual’s perception of rape. These attitudes and perceptions are, furthermore, directly related to actual aggressive behaviour against women.” They also found adult porn connected with each of the 1400 child sexual molestation cases on an average and child porn was connected with majority of them. If you want an example, countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia have an edge over this, because they don’t publicize sexual content. But in the UAE people can wear explicit dresses.
Porn is not sex education
Try to avoid porn. Most importantly, children should be kept away from porn. Porn watching makes us guilty. Once addicted to it, you are a potential rapist. Boycott porn.
Gender equality and feminism can transform a society but before that we should understand the real meaning of these words. It’s about all genders having equal rights and opportunities. The fight is against a rapist and not against all men. So, the society should boycott the perpetrators of sexual violence, while at the same time respect and honour the people (of any gender) who play an active role to end violence upon women or whoever stands against rape.
In Nepal, there is a legal provision that makes rape is an offense which can be committed only by men, as in sexual intercourse, man is considered to take an active role. The exclusion of boys, men, and sexual minorities from Article 219 is exclusionary, archaic, and is violation of the constitutional right to equal treatment for all persons. Other cases maybe numerically very low, but such cases do prevail in the society we live in.
Development is the key. Our country needs it. Mostly the educated youths who are seen flying to foreign countries for better opportunities and life left the country with less deserving ones. Educated people, instead of blaming political situation, should enter politics and try to swipe the dirt instead of blaming the politicians all the time. If we want to see our country in a better situation, we must ourselves act. We should take the responsibility to clean our country, beginning with ourselves.
[Suman Prasad Kushwaha is a student of Agriculture at the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Sciences (IAAS). A resident of Bhairahawa, he is the president of Unity for Nation’s Development, Dang.]