Video recordings of gang rapes on rise in India in effort to shame, silence the victim

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div class="inline-content inline-photo modal-0" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(213, 213, 213); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-top-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px 0px 20px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><img class="zoom-in" data-hi-res-src="http://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2014/06/12/Foreign/Images/04236532.jpg?uuid=0bH7mPJbEeORTB-9BhTi1A" data-low-res-src="http://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_400w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2014/06/12/Foreign/Images/04236532.jpg?uuid=0bH7mPJbEeORTB-9BhTi1A" src="http://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2014/06/12/Foreign/Images/04236532.jpg?uuid=0bH7mPJbEeORTB-9BhTi1A" style="border: 0px; cursor: -webkit-zoom-in; width: 599px;" /><br /><span class="pb-caption">Activists shout slogans against the Bengali government during a protest over the alleged gang rape of a 16-year-old girl. (Piyal Adhikary/European Pressphoto Agency)</span></span></div> <div class="pb-sig-line hasnt-headshot has-0-headshots hasnt-bio is-not-column" style="padding-bottom: 20px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="pb-byline" style="display: inline-block; padding-right: 5px;">By <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/people/rama-lakshmi" style="text-decoration: none;">Rama Lakshmi</a></span> <span class="pb-timestamp" style="display: inline-block; padding-right: 5px;">August 14</span> <span class="pb-tool email" style="display: inline-block; padding-right: 5px;"><a href="mailto:lakshmir@washpost.com?subject=Reader%20feedback%20for%20'Video%20recordings%20of%20gang%20rapes%20on%20rise%20in%20India%20in%20effort%20to%20shame,%20silence%20the%20victim'" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="fa fa-envelope" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; display: inline-block;"></span></a></span> <span class="tweet-authors"><span class="pb-twitter-follow" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 5px; position: relative; top: 5px;"><iframe allowtransparency="true" class="twitter-follow-button twitter-follow-button" data-twttr-rendered="true" frameborder="0" id="twitter-widget-0" scrolling="no" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets/follow_button.1407888064.html#_=1408160058313&id=twitter-widget-0&lang=en&screen_name=RamaNewDelhi&show_count=false&show_screen_name=true&size=m" style="height: 20px; width: 152px;" title="Twitter Follow Button"></iframe></span></span></span></div> <article><div style="margin-bottom: 24px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="dateline">NEW DELHI —</span> For six days, the frail 16-year-old high school student did not tell anyone about how she was raped last month by two men in an abandoned home far from her neighborhood in New Delhi.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 24px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I was afraid. While I was being raped, another man pointed a gun and<a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/16-yr-old-gangraped-accused-made-video-clip-to-blackmail-her-police/%22%20title=%22indianexpress.com%22%3ehttp:/indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/16-yr-old-gangraped-accused-made-video-clip-to-blackmail-her-police/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(212, 212, 212); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none; zoom: 1;">recorded me with his cellphone camera</a>,” the teenager recalled, sitting crouched in her New Delhi home and running her finger over a tiny tattoo on her hand. “He said he will upload the film on the Net if I tell my family or the police.”</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 24px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In the days after the rape, she grew very quiet, refused food and kept sleeping, worrying her family. Finally, after six days, her aunt pried the truth out of her. The family took her to the hospital, where the sexual assault was confirmed. The family filed a police complaint.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 24px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Women’s welfare officials say that intimidating victims with video recordings is on the rise in gang rapes in India. These recordings complicate the government’s efforts to encourage women to report the crimes and hinder police efforts to halt the explosion of “obscene” online content targeting women.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 24px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“More and more women are reporting that men are recording the act of rape with their smartphones, and they are using these recordings to threaten women into silence,” said Shamina Shafiq, a member of the state-run National Commission for Women. “In many cases, they actually upload the rape video or circulate it among friends on WhatsApp. The woman is raped not just once, but again and again when people view the video.”</span></div> <div class="wp-inline-bb pb-centered-bb has-subscribe-promo" id="slug_inline_bb" style="background-position: 123px -398px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; clear: both; float: none !important; height: auto !important; margin: 6px auto 30px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 300px;"> </div> </article><div style="margin-bottom: 24px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">India’s government has begun preliminary work to introduce amendments to India’s 14-year-old information technology law to focus it more on addressing cybercrimes against women, Shafiq said. The women’s commission has called for extensive police training, more accountability for social-media companies, “right-to-be-forgotten” policies, and separate courts to try cybercrimes against women.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 24px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Police say other <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/video-recordings-of-gang-rapes-on-rise-in-india-in-effort-to-shame-silence-the-victim/2014/08/13/%3Cp%3E%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-new-delhi-a-help-line-for-women-is-flooded-with-calls/2013/06/21/819becfc-d751-11e2-b418-9dfa095e125d_story.html%22%3ehttp:/www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-new-delhi-a-help-line-for-women-is-flooded-with-calls/2013/06/21/819becfc-d751-11e2-b418-9dfa095e125d_story.html%3c/a%3e%3c/p%3e%3cp/%3e" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(212, 212, 212); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none; zoom: 1;">cybercrimes against women</a> are also growing. They include online stalking, morphing pictures and creating sexually explicit Facebook accounts of women, and uploading sex videos without consent. (Publication and circulation of pornography are illegal in India, although creating and viewing pornography — with the exception of child pornography — for personal use is not illegal.)</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 24px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Last year, 1,203 cases of publication and transmission of obscene content online were reported, up from 589 in 2012, according to the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/video-recordings-of-gang-rapes-on-rise-in-india-in-effort-to-shame-silence-the-victim/2014/08/13/%3Cp%3E%3Ca%20href=%22http://ncrb.gov.in/%22%3ehttp:/ncrb.gov.in/%3c/a%3e%3c/p%3e%3cp%3e%3cspan%20class=%22@notes%22/%3e%3c/p%3e" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(212, 212, 212); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none; zoom: 1;">National Crime Records Bureau.</a></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 24px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“So many people now have a phone with a camera, but very few understand the laws,” said Rakshit Tandon, cybercrime adviser to the police department in Gurgaon, a prosperous suburb of New Delhi. Tandon conducts workshops in schools to train students about how they can protect themselves in the digital world. “Ninety-five percent of the calls I get are from young women who say their photographs and videos have been posted online without their consent. This is now emerging as a new way of harassing women.”</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 24px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tandon said many police stations in India lack the expertise to deal with cybercrime. Many stations in rural areas don’t even have computers.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 24px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">One disturbing trend, experts say, is the sudden growth of “revenge porn,” in which a video of a consensual sexual encounter is put online by a disgruntled partner.</span></div> <br /> <div class="wp-inline-bb pb-centered-bb has-subscribe-promo" id="slug_inline_bb_2" style="background-position: 123px -398px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; clear: both; float: none !important; height: auto !important; margin: 6px auto 30px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 300px;"> </div> <br /> <div style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.235294); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.8em; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> Shafiq likened revenge porn to “a newer form of acid attacks,” in which men throw acid into women’s faces as punishment for declining their advances or for breaking up with them.</div> <br /> <article><div style="margin-bottom: 24px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“There is a lot of homegrown revenge porn in our small towns, and we are seeing a revenge-porn economy emerging in India,” said Pavan Duggal, a lawyer who specializes in cyber law and pornography. “But many police officers do not consider it serious enough to even register a complaint. Both parents and the police blame the women: ‘Why did she get close to a man in the first place?’ they ask. A lot of it goes unreported because there are issues of social honor and shame.”</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 24px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The day after the 16-year-old girl in New Delhi summoned the courage to file a police complaint, a handwritten sign saying “gang rape” appeared on her door. The police have arrested four men, but the man with the cellphone is still at large.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 24px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Meanwhile, the teenager has stopped going to school. She has not stepped out of her home for days.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 24px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Everybody’s eyes are glued on our family these days,” said her mother, Manju Balram, 45. “We have lost all honor in society. Only God knows if her rape video is being watched by the world.”</span></div> </article><div class="post-body-sig-line" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(213, 213, 213); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(213, 213, 213); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 20px;"> <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/people/rama-lakshmi" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;"><img class="post-body-headshot-left" src="http://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=http://wp-eng-static.washingtonpost.com/author_images/lakshmir0-v.jpg?ts=1405448718366&h=90&w=90" style="border: 1px solid rgb(213, 213, 213); float: left; margin: 24px 24px 24px 0px; max-width: 90px;" /></span></a><div class="post-body-bio has-photo" style="margin: 24px 0px 24px 105px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Rama Lakshmi has been with The Post's India bureau since 1990. She is a staff writer and India social media editor for Post World.</span></div> </div> </div>

Video recordings of gang rapes on rise in India in effort to shame, silence the victim

Activists shout slogans against the Bengali government during a protest over the alleged gang rape of a 16-year-old girl. (Piyal Adhikary/...

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