Photographing survivors, Kerala priests, and the ‘exorcism’ case
The July 27 round-up of Note This: highlights from NewsTracker and more
Anushka Kelkar would love to do a photo-series with rape survivors. “Putting a face to survivors would make the brutality in such cases more real,” says the photographer behind the browngirlgazin project. In this interview with Yashi Jain, Anushka speaks of women’s bodies, rape culture, and why survivors could be empowered by no longer being faceless.
In I Think, where we capture public opinion on the news reporting of rape and sexual violence from across India, Bangalore-based Sandhya Menon talks of the “clear class distinction” in the coverage of sexual violence. In a second piece, Akshat Vachher from Delhi says not recognising marital rape as an offence speaks volumes about the way we think about rape.
Editor’s pick
A rape victim is not just a statistic. She has a name, a face, an identity. NewsTracker’s Spurthi V spoke to Shaheena Nafisa, who started the #IamNOTjustANumber campaign. “By revealing her identity,” says Shaheena, “a rape victim does not lose her dignity.”
Across India: daily round-up
Reacting to cases of sexual exploitation by priests in multiple Kerala churches, the Supreme Court has asked the state police to file a status report within two weeks. The National Commission for Women (NCW), meanwhile, has recommended confessions in churches should be abolished. In response to this, a Kerala BJP leader said that feminist ideology has crossed its limits.
More BJP members were in the news related to sexual violence today. One ex-MLA accused of rape was issued summons by the Gujarat police. In UP, Hari Om Pandey, another BJP lawmaker, claimed that rapes and murders were on the rise due to the growing Muslim population in India.
The Bihar rape victims in Muzaffarpur exposed the ‘uncles’ who assaulted them. In Bhopal, a 13-day trial led to death sentence for a man who raped and murdered a six-year-old girl. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, 33,000 cases of sexual assault against children were registered in 2017.
The Lok Sabha has passed a ‘gender-neutral’ bill to contain human trafficking.
In UP, a case of rape under the pretext of exorcism has been reported.
The Economic Times reports how the Kathua case would have passed off as an abduction and murder — but for the false bravado of a juvenile and the overconfidence of two policemen.
Read more
This daily roundup is curated from the RSS feeds of more than 30 English news publications from across India.
See a fuller list of rape and sexual violence cases reported today, and this week.
Use our case filter to read reports on specific cases: #KeralaPriest, #RapeOfMinors, #Muzaffarapur, #PoliticsOfRape (use the dropdown menu in column A).
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