The public whipping of a 13-year-old Indian girl sparked outrage over the Internet. Her village elders sentenced her to such cruel punishment after they found out that her father raped her. Isn't she supposed to elicit sympathy from elders instead of cruelty?
Whipping Of Indian Girl Captured On Camera
The horrific scene was captured by a cellphone camera. Although a bit grainy, one can see in the video the unmoving girl tied with a rope on her waist and slumped on the ground, while the sickening sound of the tree branch hitting the girl's back can be heard repeatedly in the background.
Failure To Disclose Rape By Father
Wondering what the girl's crime was? It was not anything close to murder or even simple theft. The girl failed to disclose that she was being raped by her father, according to Washington Post. She must be regarded as the victim rather than being the aggressor.
This situation may bring many to exclaim "What!?" yet for many Indian villages, where an apparent lack of education pervades, what happened to the girl was still within the bounds of normalcy. This can be seen by the obvious apathy of the people watching the whipping before their eyes. Nobody dared to move a muscle and prevent the man from further inflicting lashes on the thin girl's back.
Supreme Court Declared It Illegal
This old Indian system utilizing cruel punishment has long been declared illegal by the Indian Supreme Court. However, incidents such as the one in Mauje, Jawalwadi continue to persist, putting the lives of many teenage Indian girls in peril.
Independent said that these Indian customs have been very hard to shake. Although there are now a lot of Indian women pushing for change, still, the voices of these individuals can only reach a small percentage of the country with 1.2 billion people.
Sexual Violence Against Women
A part of the old Indian customs makes sexual violence a subject of compromise between families, often obliterating the lasting and adverse moral effects with a few hundred rupees. Those who suffer the most are women compared to men.
The world is still waiting for India to implement concrete and relevant measures that will curb these illegal practices. If these aren't curtailed for good, more teenage girls will suffer the same fate as with this 13-year-old whose only crime was not having had the courage to divulge the rape that she experienced in the hands of her father.
