Global Breaking News - Monday, December 23, 2024

Power for the Women of India
The vicious rape and murder by five men and a boy on a Delhi bus has electrified the public in India, which by some measures has one of the highest rates of sexual violence in the world. The case has fueled demands for an end to degrading attitudes, customs and laws that persist in a rapidly changing society. Women are calling for not only protection against violence, but also measures to overcome inequality. How can Indian women gain power so they would not only be safe, but also have more say in their nation’s future?
* vicious = 잔인한, 포악한/ electrify = 열광(흥분)시키다/ sexual violence = 성폭력/ fuel = 부채질하다/ degrading = 비하하는, 모멸적인/ persist = 계속(지속)되다/ call for ~ = ~을 요구하다/ inequality = 불평등, 불균등

 어떻게 인도의 여성들이 힘을 얻어 그들의 안전뿐 아니라 국가의 미래에 더 많은 발언권을 갖을 수 있나요?

1. Political Strength Will Force the Issue
Constitutional guarantees of positions for women would increase the focus on women's issues and society's acceptance of their full equality.

2. Change Can Come in Courts, Police and Schools
Make assault laws tougher. Train police to be more active and sensitive. Teach children the nature of gender equality.

3. Before Bus Horror, Years as Second-Class Passengers
Stronger rape laws will help, but the bigger challenge is to build a society that recognizes women as autonomous beings.

4. Respect Is the First Step
We should call on men to take responsibility for the ways they practice or excuse discrimination and violence against women.

Sample Essay

Change Can Come in Courts, Police and Schools

From Delhi to Steubenville, everyone suffers patriarchy; women suffer the rougher end of the stick. The protests in Delhi have made it clear that women are citizens and violence is not the burden of each woman alone, guarantees of bodily integrity and freedom are a basic reason government exists.

Make assault laws tougher. Train police to be more active and sensitive. Teach children the nature of gender equality. The government has set up a committee to examine reforms – it holds the hopes of 17,000 recommendations. Here are some I have made:

• Rewrite laws on sexual assault and rape, which date back to 1860, to throw out colonial, patriarchal concepts like calling sexual assault “outraging the modesty of a woman” and explicitly allowing marital rape. Create grades of assault based on the level of harm and specifically criminalize stalking and acid attacks – common in South Asia.

• New laws should provide for rape crisis centers, injunctions to keep at bay those who threaten violence, compensation for psychological and physical damage. The laws must be budgeted by those expected to implement them.

• Punishment should be greater when, as is frequently the case, caste and power differentials aggravate a sexual assault. Economic, social and political dominance adds a different kind of violence to sexual assault.

• Laws must specifically deal with attacks by men, since sexual violence is overwhelmingly committed by men on women, men and transgenders. Sexual violence by women and transgender people certainly should be criminalized, but after studies on the nature of that violence.

• Criminalize sexual assault by members of security forces and amend the Armed Forces Special Powers Act so that women receive the same protection against such attacks as children now have. Sexual violence by the military and paramilitary has been widely documented.

• Recruit and promote police, prosecutors and judges who act creatively to realize constitutional equalities. Institutional and individual discrimination in the criminal justice system further harms survivors of violence. At the recruitment stage, officials should be tested and interviewed for their attitudes to women and transgenders from other castes, religions and races; to sex workers; to those complaining of partner violence, and to those who are sexually active or in skimpy clothing. They should also be tested for their ability to compensate for the discrimination of others. The good officers, prosecutors and judges should be recognized in performance reviews with privileges, promotions and awards and discriminatory officials should be penalized and held accountable. Gender audits every few months to improve policing, lawyering and judging as well as experiential workshops that help officials walk in the shoes of the citizens of other genders they serve would help them achieve incentives.

• Since ideas of what a ‘woman’ is and what a ‘man’ is, and ideas about race and sexuality, are primarily socially constructed, workshops in all public schools would help boys, girls and transgender students understand their own gender and that of others better. They should also receive self-defence classes, anger management and learning to relate better to others.

Governments and courts can provide better safety, better responses to violence, improved schooling. Only leadership by men and women at home, at work, in cultural production and in public spaces will dismantle patriarchal barriers in minds and hearts.