Last week, the news broke that the five men charged with the violent gang rape and murder of a young Delhi woman on Dec. 16 would be fast-tracked through India鈥檚 courts.
On the one hand, it鈥檚 good to see the Indian justice system taking this case extremely seriously.
On the other hand, while this case stands out for its brutality (I cannot bring myself to write in any greater detail what these men are accused of doing to this woman鈥檚 body), this is only one of many instances of sexualized violence committed against women in India. The current outrage in India is partly a response to the way in which police and government officials have consistently mishandled or ignored rape cases in the past. Investigation and prosecution of rape often relies upon victim-blaming tactics and ideas about women鈥檚 purity (as in the infamous 鈥渢wo-finger test鈥�), and this case has brought attention to the widespread failures of India鈥檚 sexual-assault laws.
This is a horrific case. Here in North America, we鈥檙e outraged to hear of such a crime.
But it troubles me the way I鈥檝e heard some people express this outrage. From the moment this story broke, in our search to find a way to talk about something so cruel and inhuman, we slipped all too easily into the language of the 鈥渙ther.鈥�
Go to the comments section on any news site (or even Facebook) and you鈥檒l see it: India has a rape problem because India is alien, uncivilized, a Third World nation, totally unlike us. Because it is politically corrupt and culturally backwards and all the women are subjugated at all times. Personal reactions vary from 鈥淚鈥檓 scratching India off my travel list鈥� to 鈥渒eep those people out of Canada.鈥�
Keep which people out of Canada? The Indians, or the rapists, or just the Indian rapists? Does this person not know that Canada has rapists?
Instead of having a conversation about the importance of advocating for women鈥檚 safety and women鈥檚 rights, we made rape Indian and called it a day.
It鈥檚 not hard to see why we do this. If rape is Indian, then it鈥檚 something we don鈥檛 have to worry about.
Unfortunately for us and our sense of cultural superiority, last year India reported 24,000 rape cases, with a population of 1.2 billion. The United States reported 188,380 rape cases in 2010, with a population of 310 million. Even keeping in mind that rape is much less likely to be reported in India, these numbers are Seriously Not Good 鈥� and it鈥檚 important to point out that in the U.S, the Nation鈥檚 Enliven Project estimates that only 10 per cent of rapes are reported, only 30 per cent of those reported go to trial, and only 10 per cent of those trials result in jail time for the accused.
Similarly, in Canada, it鈥檚 estimated that only 10 per cent of sexual assaults (the word 鈥渞ape鈥� is not used in the 91原创 Criminal Code) are reported to the police 鈥� which puts us at an estimated number of 500,000 sexual assaults per year.
When we try to explain this case in terms of its 鈥淚ndian-ness,鈥� we are ignoring a vast body of information that says clearly that rape is a problem that exists in many cultures, and affects all nations. Relegating it to the depraved proclivities of some racialized 鈥渙ther鈥� is comforting, perhaps, but it鈥檚 also incorrect, not to mention dangerous.
While it is absolutely productive to talk about the specific ways in which Indian law and society promote rape culture and allow rapists to go free, we must not let that conversation distract us from the equally important conversation about the specific ways in which our own law and culture promote rape culture and allow rapists to go free.
Because they do. Canada, too, has a rape problem, and a rape culture.
(Rape culture, for the uninitiated, is any combination of attitudes, beliefs, values, laws, policies or religious regulations that encourage us to be more interested in what the victim of a sexualized crime did to 鈥渄eserve鈥� it, or how he or she should have prevented it, than in investigating the perpetrator of the crime.)
Rape does not belong to one country or one culture, and when we fall into the trap of explaining it as a product of someone else鈥檚 鈥渙therness,鈥� we鈥檙e getting further away from promoting women鈥檚 safety and women鈥檚 rights, not closer.
