Girl molested in Guwahati: Is there no end to this menace?

It’s been six days and the police have arrested only six culprits who had molested a teenage girl in Guwahati, Assam. Why do these men attack young girls, especially the ones going to pubs or bars? Maybe it is not a sign of disapproval, but a feeling that they are unable to join the so-called modern circles. Maybe their frustration of not being able to socially or financially qualifying to the affluent and upmarket group makes them to victimize young women.

Maybe it is not a coincidence that majority of the victims belong to this transitional strata, who work in pubs, call centres etc. The pubs and hotels that usually report such crime are not the ones frequented by the rich and powerful, but by youth who are probably the first ones in their families to discover some cheap beer and privacy with their partners! But whatever be the reason, these men forget the simple fact that their own sister or daughter or mother or any relative could be in the similar situation one day and people remain mute spectators… It’s time for people to protest against such heinous acts and help the cops in identifying the culprits.

Maybe this 17-year-old girl didn’t have an idea that she would be attacked by an angry mob when she came outside the pub this Monday night, July 9, 2012. The teenager had gone to celebrate a friend’s birthday at Club Mint on GS Road in Guwahati, Assam. She was singled out and targeted after her friends left at 9.30 pm.

The victim was molested by an angry mob for around 40 minutes on a busy street outside the pub in Guwahati's Christian Basti area. And what’s surprising is the fact that the nearest police station was just one kilometre away from the place where the incident happened. And disgustingly, the police took over 40 minutes to reach the spot!

Plus, shockingly, the whole incident was captured on a camera by a News Live cameraperson and is now viral on the Internet. Nobody bothered to help the hapless girl, who literally went on begging everybody to rescue her from the mob. The entire incident was shot on camera. And wonder about the ethics behind shooting a molestation incident live and airing it? The channel said they did it "in public interest"!

Syed Zarir Hussain, the Managing Editor of the TV channel, said, "Had we stopped rolling the camera, these molesters would not have been arrested. What we did was in public interest. On the night this incident happened, we showed only the molesters. We took a call to show the incident the next day as we realised that the molesters would not have be arrested. Whatever we did, we did for public interest and it is because we showed the video that four people have been arrested."

As many as 13 culprits have been identified with the help of the video and only six have been arrested so far. The first arrest was made only on Wednesday, two days after the incident. And what about the cops who arrived late? A police official has been suspended for dereliction of duty amid ongoing raids in Assam and neighbouring states to nab the remaining culprits.

Then, there is Akhil Gogoi, RTI activist and Team Anna  member, who claimed that he has in his possession video footage that proves Gaurav Jyoti Neog, reporter of News Live channel was not just present, but also "planned and directed" the ghastly mob attack. He held press conferences on Friday and Saturday to prove his allegations. He showed the footage, which had a voice asking for the girl being molested to be brought to a well-lit area since the camera had arrived. Gogoi also suggested a forensic test to prove that the voice was Neog's. The voice, he alleged is heard making lewd comments, but that these comments were beeped out in the footage that News Live aired.

On the other hand, Neog rejected Gogoi's charges, though he agreed that he was present that night at the pub, Club Mint.

The National Commission for Women team, which visited the victim at her residence on Saturday, said that the victim reiterated to them that she could see the camera light on her. The team said that the victim told them she knew she was being recorded and kept pleading but he did not help her. The NCW team, also said that they found signs of cigarette burns on her body. "The girl has wounds on her body. The boys who were drunk must have been smoking cigarettes because there were cigarette marks on the girl's body," said Alka Lamba, a member of the special team of the NCW that's probing the incident.

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has finally reacted to the Guwahati incident. He has asked the police to take immediate action in the case. He also stated that a Special Task Force (STF) has been constituted to tackle the situation. “No one has the right to molest anyone… I have asked the police to keep a vigil on the anti-social elements," said Gogoi.

Unfortunately, still the culprits are roaming scot-free after the horrific incident, the atrocious crime which has sent shock waves across the entire country with people, politicians and protesters demanding strict action.
Hoardings, with the faces of the culprits who have been identified from the video footage of the incident, have been put up across Guwahati.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau's NCRB latest statistics, Assam is one of most vulnerable places in the country in terms of crime against women. The latest NCRB figures say that the rate of crime against women in Assam was the second highest in the country in 2011 with 36.6 per cent, and the rate represents a jump from the 33.5 in 2010. The NCRB report further said that there were 2,28,650 incidents of crimes against women in the country, out of which Assam registered 11,503 incidents.

To be frank, this is not the first such incident in the recent past, where a woman has been molested in public and people had been mute spectators.

On January 1, 2007, a group of revellers had attacked a young woman at the Gateway of India in Mumbai. Photographs of the woman being groped appeared in a tabloid Tuesday morning. The mob had even torn off her skirt despite the presence of her male companion.  The tabloid photographer had claimed that he was atop a temporary watch tower erected by the police when he clicked the pictures. The woman screamed for help but no one came to her aid, not even the cops came to her rescue and the couple managed to get away on their own.

On January 1, 2008, a mob of 70-80 men groped and molested two young women for around 15 minutes on a busy main street in Mumbai’s glamour district Juhu. The women - one in a black dress, the other in a jeans and top - emerged from the JW Marriott with two male friends around 1.45 am, and began walking towards Juhu beach close by.  A mob of about 40 got after them and began teasing the women. One of the women swore loudly at the hooligans. But the mob, now 70-80 strong, wouldn’t let go. They trapped the women near a vehicle and a tree, and pounced on them. A man in a white shirt tore off the black dress. Another, in a blue shirt, led the assault. As the women fell on the ground, dozens of men jumped on them.”

On October 20, 2011, Reuben Fernandes, 29, and his 24-year-old friend Keenan Santos after dining at the restaurant, stepped out to have a paan. A drunken man, Jitender Rana, made some lewd comments about the girls in the group, which resulted in an argument. Rana went away saying that he would be back in five minutes. After 10 minutes, Rana returned with a group of friends, armed with sharp weapons and then stabbed Santos and Reuben in the stomach. While Keenan died within a few hours of the fight, Reuben underwent an operation, but died after having a sudden massive internal bleeding in his abdomen.

On January 1, 2012, a young girl was molested outside Sahara Mall in Gurgaon. The police used batons to disperse the assaulters. A cop said: “There was a huge crowd and when we reached the spot the victim was crying for help. Though her friend tried to protect her, youths pounced upon her and started groping her. When we intervened, the youths started attacking us. Earlier, we managed to send some girls in a cab to Delhi.”

Ok, what do the Indian laws have to say about molestation?
1. Section 341 (Wrongful Restraint): Simple Imprisonment for 1 month, or a fine of Rs 500, or both.
2. Section 143 (Unlawful Assembly): Imprisonment for 6 months, or fine, or both.
3. Section 294 (Obscene Act): Imprisonment for 3 months, or fine, or both.
4. Section 323 (Voluntarily Causing Hurt): Imprisonment for 1 year, or fine of Rs 1,000, or both.
5. Section 354 (Assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty): Imprisonment for 2 years, or fine, or both.

 But the question is, are the culprits aware of these laws? Even if they do, how many of them are charged? How many victims get justice?

Qatar tops MENA region in female literacy rate

Qatar is the only country in the MENA region where female adult literacy is higher than male adult literacy, which confirms the vital role women have come to play in nation building, says Qatari writer and Faculty Member of Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, Dr Amal Mohammed al Malki. Excerpts:

Q: How would you assess the present status of Arab women?

A: Arab women have achieved some critical rights, such as a more equal personal status code for women in Morocco, the right to divorce in Egypt, the right to vote and run in elections in Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait over the last decade or so.

However, there is so much more to be done. Women are still caught between politics and culture.

There is the need to institutionalise their rights to ensure they are not left to be hijacked by political factions or outdated traditions.

How would you rate the role of Qatari women in the process of nation building?

Qatari women are a central resource in Qatar’s strategy of national development.

According to World Bank statistics on women and development in the Middle East, Qatar is a leader in women’s advancement in the MENA region. Qatar closed the malefemale secondary school enrollment gap back in 1980, much, much before any other MENA country.

UNESCO figures for 2000 put Qatar as one of the only six MENA countries (along with the UAE, Kuwait, Lebanon, Bahrain, and Jordan) where adult female literacy is over 80 percent. It is the only country in MENA where female adult literacy surpasses male adult literacy.

Among the school-age population, Qatar stands third in the ratio of female to male literacy, second only to Palestine and Saudi Arabia. More than any other MENA country, Qatar has encouraged women to continue their education after high school, with three Qatari women attending a post-secondary college or university for every male who does so. Qatari women study the humanities, arts, and education at the tertiary level by a ratio of 9:1 over men, suggesting that Qatar, already and will for decades to come, rely primarily on experts drawn from its female population to design and implement its core educational strategies.

What are the stages of development Arab women have passed through in the past one to two decades?

Arab women’s recent development has been mainly tied to politics and economy, and thus we see that women in stable economies and political atmospheres have been granted more freedom and equality, especially in terms of education and employment.

The two main global agreements in recent history that have benefited Arab women are the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), a universal “bill of rights” for women that requires all signatories to abolish all laws that are inconsistent with women’s equality with men and the Fourth World Conference on Women, better known as the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (Beijing Declaration 1995).

What has been the impact of Arab Spring on Women in the Arab world?

Nothing that is positive so far. On the contrary actually, women rights are further jeopardised due to change of political ideologies and women themselves are the first victims of any political unrest, so until the Arab Spring settles down and we see its results on women’s struggle for equality, I’m afraid any claim of it having positive impact on women is just hypocrisy.

However, I would like to reverse the question and talk about the impact of women on the Arab Spring.

Women have proved that they are in fact equal citizens with political consciousness and can be major players in the political scenes.

Men and women stood side by side in every venue calling for freedom and political reform. They talked to the world east and west and utilised traditional media as well as new media.

They proved to the world and their own societies that they aren’t passive and that they have voices which they used in all languages.

Why is it that you are the only Qatari faculty member of the Education City?

It happened that I had the right qualifications and wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. The moment I knew what I wanted and that is to teach in Education City, I was determined to achieve my aim.

I believe nothing is impossible and you can overcome any obstacle with determination and hard work. To teach in a branch campus here in Qatar, I had to go through the main campus, which meant that I had to teach in Carnegie Mellon- Pittsburgh before teaching here. It was one of the most fulfilling experiences that shaped who I am today.

Do you think that Qatari women are unwilling to take up such responsibilities?

I believe in the will and power of Qatari women and I believe that many will follow in my footsteps.

What kind of role do you foresee for the Qatari woman by 2030?

I see her working as a partner and a leader. She will be the wife and mother, student, educator, manager, minister, politician, economist, pilot, athletic, and many more. She will demand the respect of the world and will break all stereotypes about her.

(Source: Qatar Tribune)

‘I was tired of explaining my bruises...’

Got this article from Bangalore Mirror. A true and heart-touching story of a woman. Not many dare to come up openly in public with such issues. Hats off to the courageous lady. Read the story to laud the bold step of her.

I met Paras in 2010. Tall, handsome and charming; I wasn’t surprised when I found myself agreeing to go out for a coffee with him that very evening. And that is how it all started. What followed was a whirlwind romance. I will not deny it, but it was the best time of my life. He would drive  to my place in the middle of the night just to let me know that he missed me. He would send flowers over to my office, take me to the most expensive places and buy the most extravagant gifts. What made me fall in love with him was the person he appeared to be -well-spoken, intelligent, an absolute gentleman with my friends, caring and all the things I had ever wanted in a guy. Three months into our relationship, he proposed marriage and needless to say, I was thrilled!

My parents and my best friend hated the idea of me getting married. My parents thought we needed more time to know each other,  while my best friend thought 24 was too young to get married. But I was in love and adamant. And I was scared. I thought, ‘What if I never meet anyone else with whom I am this comfortable and compatible’. Now that I think of it, I guess a part of me agreed to the marriage because that meant that he will be mine and he won’t be able to walk out of my life.

Now, that very thing is making my life crumble around me. I got married in November 2010, against my parents’ wishes. My best friend stopped talking to me. I convinced myself that she was jealous. My parents  had no choice but to accept me. However, they made it very clear that they would not support me if I decided to walk out of the marriage. 

Three months into the marriage, I began to realise why my parents had asked me to take more time to get to know the guy. I always knew he drank. I enjoyed my own drink so, I never saw anything wrong with him having the usual peg with dinner every time we went out. But once married, I saw that his usual peg was generally 5 pegs everyday. The fights started when I asked him to slow down. At 26, he was convinced that he was invincible and went out of his way to prove that I was wrong. 

Gradually, the fights started getting bitter and he started using filthy language. Within a week, he was abusing me and my family. I tried to be patient, but one day I snapped. I slapped him out of anger and frustration, which infuriated him terribly. I still remember the look in his eyes when he looked at me and said, ‘I’ll make you regret that’ and he did. Verbal abuse turned into physical abuse. But whenever I threatened to walk out, he would do the loveliest of things to make me change my mind.

One night, he left me with a black eye, the next day, he took a day off work, cooked and pampered me. But the violence didn’t stop. Nine months into our marriage, I gave up hope. I was tired of explaining my bruises to my colleagues and friends and tired of living in constant fear about when I would get beaten up next. But I could not just walk out. I loved him. Even after all of that, I wanted him. 

In October, our fights reached a whole new level. I was determined to make him see that he was wrong and he was determined to win. One of these fights got exceptionally violent. I threw an ashtray at him which cut his cheek. He was livid and before I could realise, he had twisted my arm enough to break it. I knew I couldn’t stay any longer. I called up a women’s helpline. The counsellor told me that I was one of the very few educated women who sought help when faced with domestic violence. Apparently women like “us” preferred to live in silence, lest the society points a finger at us or people think that we have morals to enrage a man enough to hit us. The reasons were innumerable. But it didn’t  matter to me. A month ago, Paras agreed to go in for therapy, anger management classes and to a counsellor to deal with alcoholism. My parents now want me to move back with them. My in-laws want us to get separated. My best friend is not only talking to me, but screaming at me everyday about how stupid I am. Yes, ‘walking out’ is an easier option; easier to put an end to the domestic violence. But it is also easy to try to get help for someone I deeply care about. I am someone who stayed at home and fought to change our lives. I believe Paras can be helped. And I know he will change. 

When the ‘dirty little secret’ comes out

I sometimes wonder if education and employment really empower women in India. But still I see women gaining monetary independence and still trapped in the vicious circle of domestic violence. On the one hand, women are encouraged to pursue their education and get good jobs, but on the other hand, they are still expected to shoulder the responsibility of the household. Even if they work full time at office, they still return home to do all the unpaid domestic work single-handedly. When they she show reluctance, they face confrontation from their in-laws!

Is it because of the anger of men that it’s happening? I don’t know. Maybe they think women have won some sort of autonomy, an autonomy which breaks the men’s traditional stranglehold over the household and economy. In retaliation, many women face domestic violence.

As women gain good education, they become aware of their rights and question their male family members. When they refuse to tolerate the abuses, it may trigger conflict in the family. I have come across a few women who are very humble and meek and believe it is a husband’s right to beat his wife. Plus, there are occasions when newly-liberated women come in contact with their traditional mothers-in-law, and their husbands supporting their mothers and tension erupting in the family. And there have been cases where women have been killed by in-laws and husbands. I’m surprised how some in-laws face condemnation from their in-laws for their work and some feel that their in-laws are jealous of their work, which is often one of the leading causes of psychological torture.

What’s very strange is, which is one of the major aspects in accelerating domestic violence is that most women choose to suffer silently. They refuse to take any action against the perpetrators of violence.

The United Nations declared November 25 as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. And October is National Violence Awareness month in the United States and one-third of women in the US still experience physical or sexual abuse by a male partner at some point in their lives, surveys show. As a matter of fact, so many other countries come with reports and articles on domestic violence regularly, quite often more during this month. China’s Xinhua news agency came up with a poll – a government survey on the social status of women in China -- report telling the world that about a quarter of its women suffer domestic abuse. The survey classified domestic abuse as verbal humiliation, physical assault, deprivation of personal freedom, illegal control of income and rape, and was based on the responses of 105,573 women aged 18 and above across the country. Reports of physical assault stood at 5.5 per cent, with a rate of 7.9 per cent among rural women and 3.1 per cent among their urban counterparts.

Domestic abuse became a big story in September when Chinese celebrity Li Yang -- yes, the same English teacher whose “Crazy English” teaching method made him very popular in the mid-1990s -- was exposed in a scandal of domestic violence, beating his American wife, Kim Lee, in front of his children. The world was shocked to see the photographs of Kim -- on her micro-blog at Weibo, one of China's most popular social media sites -- with bruises on her head and legs. The devil is in the details. The world was taken aback when she posted: "You knocked me to the floor. You sat on my back. You choked my neck with both hands and slammed my head into the floor. When I pried your hands from my neck you grabbed my hair and slammed my head into the floor 10 more times!" and his apology on his micro-blog after a week that, "I wholeheartedly apologise to my wife Kim and my girls for committing domestic violence. This has caused them serious physical and mental damage."

Though China set up an aid centre in Shanghai – the first in China -- against domestic violence in November 2009, and later several such centres were set up in other regions of the country, to offer temporary accommodation for victims, the country, interestingly, is yet to draft an independent law on domestic abuse.

Earlier, women silently suffered domestic abuse, as they considered it a family affair, too personal to talk about, let alone report it to police. And maybe that is the reason everybody saw a “they lived happily ever after” families. When scene was such, there was no question of a survey on it or any organisation to help the victims. But today, most of the countries have included it in their several laws, besides several organisations pitching in to increase awareness and helping the victims to turn to the police or NGOs or even the media for help.

On the other hand, in Ireland, almost 900 women and children were accommodated in, or needed some kind of support from, domestic violence services in just one 24-hour period in 2010. Safe Ireland -- the only national organisation representing frontline domestic violence services in Ireland -- released the results of a one-day census it carried out last November, and astonishingly, the census, carried out on November 4, 2010, showed that on that day, 555 women and 324 children were accommodated or received support from these services. This means, almost 36 people seeking support every single hour of that day. And noting the nationalities, most were Irish, however, other nationalities, including British, Nigerian, Polish, Russian and Chinese women too approached the Safe Ireland, on that day.

Maybe we have to go beyond mere numbers to acknowledge that each statistic represents a crime against a woman, a mother, an expectant mother, a toddler or a teenager, each living with fear, brutality and uncertainty at their own homes. There is a need to act quickly with responsibility and unwaivering commitment – to begin with those in higher positions -- our leaders and politicians.

Domestic violence and sexual assault is kind of like everybody's dirty little secret. No one wants to talk about it. No one wants to admit that they've been sexually assaulted. No one wants to admit that the person that they love the best has beaten them. There’s a need for domestic violence survivors to unite, to speak about what they went through. A very few will offer their stories in public as it always takes courage on the part of the victim. Not all can become Carolyn Thomas. She did not want to remain silent, instead, decided to speak out, travelling across the nation, educating women about the dynamics and dangers of domestic violence. She's been on TV shows, including “Oprah” in 2005, where her tale of courage drew such an overwhelming viewer response that she was invited back for the final show in April 2011.

 And now, Cuba has gone a step forward by airing the soap opera, “Bajo el mismo sol” (Under the Same Sun), for several weeks now, bringing the touchy and often silenced issue of violence against women into millions of homes. As Diéguez put it: “This soap is the first television programme in Cuba to address the ‘cycle of violence’ - a theory formulated by US anthropologist Lenore E. Walker (The Battered Woman, 1979) that explains the behaviour of some women abused by their spouses, especially about why the victim goes back to her attacker.

The victims can always caution others and help avoid violence or come out in public to raise their voice against such unhappy events, if any. The signs of domestic abuse can vary from jealousy to controlling and isolating behaviour to mental and emotional abuse. Not to forget Carolyn Thomas’ words: “I want women to understand they could wind up like me, or worse… They can wind up in the graveyard.”

Saudi woman beheaded for sorcery

Another shocking news, again from Saudi Arabia. It has beheaded a woman for practicing sorcery.

A Saudi woman, in her 60s, was beheaded Monday after being convicted of practicing sorcery, which is banned in the ultra-conservative kingdom, the interior ministry said, reported AFP. 

Amina bint Abdulhalim Nassar was executed in the northern province of Jawf for "practising witchcraft and sorcery," the ministry said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency. The Dailymail.co.uk  reported that the London-based al-Hayat daily, however, quoted Abdullah al-Mohsen, chief of the religious police who arrested the woman, as saying she had tricked people into thinking she could treat illnesses, charging them $800 (£500) per session. The newspaper said a female investigator followed the case up, and the woman was arrested in April 2009 and later convicted in a Saudi court.

It is not clear how many women have been executed in the desert-kingdom, but another woman was beheaded in October for killing her husband by setting his house on fire.

The execution brings the total to 76 this year in Saudi Arabia. At least three have been women, and 11 were foreign nationals. In September, a Sudanese man, Abdul Hamid bin Hussain bin Moustafa al-Fakki, was also put to death in Saudi Arabia for sorcery.

Amnesty International has called for the kingdom's government to establish an immediate moratorium on executions.

The crime of 'sorcery' is not defined in Saudi Arabian law but it has been used to punish people for the legitimate exercise of their human rights, including their right to freedom of expression, the charity said.

The London-based human rights watchdog condemned Monday's execution as "truly appalling," and called on the conservative kingdom to urgently halt the practice.

"The charges of 'witchcraft and sorcery' are not defined as crimes in Saudi Arabia", said Philip Luther, Amnesty's interim director of the Middle East and North Africa.

"To use them to subject someone to the cruel and extreme penalty of execution is truly appalling," he added in a statement, which stressed the "urgent need" to stop executions.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia's strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law.

Luther described as "deeply disturbing" the huge rise in the number of executions in Saudi Arabia.
Many of those executed have had no defence lawyer and are not informed about the legal proceedings against them, according to Amnesty.

"While we don't know the details of the acts which the authorities accused Amina of committing, the charge of sorcery has often been used in Saudi Arabia to punish people, generally after unfair trials, for exercising their right to freedom of speech or religion," Luther said.

Earlier this month, Amnesty accused the oil-rich kingdom of conducting a campaign of repression against protesters and reformists since the Arab Spring erupted 12 months ago.

The rights group said Saudi Arabia was one of a minority of states which voted against a UN General Assembly resolution last December calling for a worldwide moratorium on executions.

Amnesty says Saudi Arabia executed 27 convicts in 2010, compared to 67 executions announced the year before.