Yes, India has a rape problem but is it really a no-go for women?
Yonden Lhatoo questions the perception that India is the most dangerous country in the world for women, while acknowledging it needs serious soul-searching and reform to improve its track record on protecting them
“I don’t think I’m ever going to India – I don’t want to end up getting raped,” a young, well-heeled local woman told me at a recent social gathering in Hong Kong when the subject of travelling to the subcontinent came up.
Having often come across this kind of phobia before, my ready reply was constructed along the lines of, “Yes, India has a rape problem. But you do realise, don’t you, that the vast majority of women there are living normal lives, and they’re not being sexually assaulted as we speak? In fact, millions of women visit India every year and return to their home countries unmolested.”
I have to say such paranoid perceptions about India, though grossly exaggerated and borderline xenophobic, are not entirely unjustified, given the sensational social and mainstream media coverage of some truly horrific rape cases in the country.
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Or she could check out Afghanistan as a safer alternative to India. Afghanistan, where Taliban terrorists still on the rampage run a sort of reverse #MeToo campaign that essentially entails brutal death for women perceived to be stepping out of line. Plus, they have a medieval system that allows rape victims to be punished for adultery or forced to marry their rapists.
The biggest problem with surveys of this ilk is they are based on perception over fact. If you look at global rankings based on the aggregation of official statistics, using the number of rapes per 100,000 people in any country as a more accurate measure, India is never at the top and rarely in the top 10.
By the way, the US was the only Western country that made it to the Thomson Reuters list – the rest were from Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
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I’m no apologist for India. I find it truly appalling that four cases of rape are reported to police every hour, and about 100 incidences of sexual assault every day. Many cases go unreported because of the shame, social stigma, fear of retaliation and lack of faith in the justice system.
There is no defending any of this. For all its efforts to assert itself on the global stage with its economic and political clout as well as through the soft power of cultural exports such as yoga, India is held back by its abject failure to get a grip on this.
But let’s not get carried away with completely unnecessary fearmongering. I have many female friends and relatives scattered across India and I’m happy to report they’re all safe and sound, living perfectly normal lives.
So, ladies, don’t be afraid of travelling to India. Go see the Taj Mahal – it’s something everyone ought to do at least once in their lifetime.
But of course, be mindful of where you are and who you’re with, just like you would in New York or London. Never mind the scary surveys.
Yonden Lhatoo is the chief news editor at the Post
