Once upon a time, Delhi’s Commission for Women was regarded as a toothless, comatose body that few took seriously. Until Swati Maliwal took charge. She made it a campaigning powerhouse that challenged police policy, altered legislation and helped bring thousands more sexual assault cases to court andrapists to justice. During her two terms in office, Maliwal, 39, [went on hunger strike](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/07/india-rapes-activist-hunger-strike-protest#:~:text=She%20deprived%20herself%20of%20food,six%20months%20for%20child%20rapists.) to demand police action against sexual harassment and rape, which resulted in the government increasing sentencing. She walked Delhi’s streets at 3am to experience how a woman feels out alone; and went on police brothel raids, which led to the release of women and [girls](https://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/15-year-old-girl-rescued-from-brothel-after-dcw-chief-swati-maliwal-got-a-tip-off-on-facebook-321568.html), who were given vocational training. She also issued a summons against the Delhi police commissioner when he refused to share data on crime rates. This week she embarks on a new role, taking a seat in the upper house of India’s parliament. It’s a remarkable rise for a woman from what she calls “a dysfunctional family”. “My father abused me physically and sexually until my mother left him,” says Maliwal, from her Delhi home. “She and I went through a lot of pain. As a little girl, what kept me going was the idea of growing up and helping others.” Commissions were established in every Indian state in the 1990s to improve the status of women. They cannot make policy but can make recommendations to government, have the power to question civil servants and police, and help women file and fight court cases of abuse and discrimination. Under Maliwal’s eight-year leadership, the [Delhi branch](https://wcd.delhi.gov.in/wcd/delhi-commission-women) handled 170,000 complaints of rape, dowry violence, “honour” killings and trafficking – a more than eightfold increase on the previous eight years, during which just 20,000 complaints were registered. [](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/feb/02/womens-champion-swati-maliwal-takes-delhi-anti-rape-fight-nationwide#img-2) Swati Maliwal went on hunger strike to protest against the way rape cases were treated. Photograph: Swati Maliwal The commission now receives up to 4,000 calls a day to its helpline, which is staffed by more than 100 counsellors, up from 20 eight years ago. The number of lawyers working with the commission has increased from five to 70. Taking on the authorities has never fazed Maliwal, who resigned her post on 5 January after serving the maximum two terms. She has been fighting abuse since joining a women’s rights NGO after university rather than take a job with a software giant that could have brought her financial security. “I have received rape threats, death threats. I’ve been trolled, called a woman who hates men, who is too opinionated, who should be ashamed of herself,” she says. She was called “a disloyal daughter” when she revealed her father’s abuse and vilified when she spoke about her divorce, calling her marriage “toxic”. She decided neither to block the trolls nor take them on. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/feb/02/womens-champion-swati-maliwal-takes-delhi-anti-rape-fight-nationwide#EmailSignup-skip-link-11) Sign up to Global Dispatch Get a different world view with a roundup of the best news, features and pictures, curated by our global development team **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion > Indian women are raising their voices and becoming stronger. That makes me confident about the future “If you engage with a pig, he is going to enjoy it and you are going to get dirty. So I don’t engage, because I’m not going to let my self-worth be determined by them,” she says. “I’m a great believer in speaking out, because it gives other women the courage to open up, too.” Her biggest frustration in the job was knowing the government was not supporting her. She says: “I wanted to meet the home minister so that we could coordinate action by having monthly meetings to understand what the issues are, what systems we need and individual cases. But I was never granted one.” Maliwal says her biggest achievement is leaving the commission with the systems, staff and resources in place to handle its growing caseload. She says: “Proper operating procedures have been set up to ensure that no woman’s complaint goes unattended.” Despite the problems facing Indian women, Maliwal is convinced there has been progress. She says: “Yes, patriarchy is entrenched and yes, there is violence. But Indian women are raising their voices and becoming stronger. That makes me confident about the future.” Maliwal is now taking her fight for women’s rights to a national level after being elected as a representative of the Aam Aadmi Party in the upper house of the Indian parliament. Politics, she says, allows her to amplify her voice beyond Delhi to all India. Maliwal believes parliament has overlooked vital issues concerning women, and that her experience will bring a useful perspective to debates. “Having been an activist and headed the commission, now, as an MP, my aim is to be the unwavering advocate of women’s issues in parliament,” she says. “Of course, it will bring abuse. I know that. But it won’t stop me.”

_Content Warning: The following story references sexual assault of a teenager._  "As her father, I deeply regret that I didn't protect her." That's Ranjit, a middle-age rice farmer from the Bero district of the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand. He is speaking of the gang rape of his 13-year-old daughter. Their story is the subject of director Nisha Pahuja's film, _To Kill a Tiger,_ which has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film. Set in a scenic village, with lush rice fields and dusty lanes, replete with goats, Pahuja's documentary transports viewers to the beauty of small-town India – and the heartaches and strife in Ranjit's life. ****YouTube**** In the opening scene, a girl braids her hair, securing it with bright orange ribbons that look like a burst of golden flowers. She looks to be all of 13. The camera shifts to a middle-aged man, his face worn and tired. He's seated beside lush green fields, and speaks of the love he has for his daughter, one of four children. "The amount of love I gave her, I wasn't able to give any other child," he says. In the film, Ranjit worries about the well-being of his other children but addressing the huge injustice done to his daughter takes up much of his time and emotional energy. ### A crime, a connection The incident happened on the night of Ranjit's nephew's wedding. The family had left the party earlier, and the daughter (the movie uses the pseudonym "Kiran" to protect her from online trolling) was supposed to return home shortly afterward. It wasn't until 1.30 a.m. that an anxious Ranjit found his daughter stumbling home. She told her family she had been dragged away by three men and raped. One of them was Ranjit's nephew. The sexual assault was so violent that it caused considerable internal injury, says Ranjit. His daughter was traumatized, he says. For weeks, his once bright, chatty little girl seldom spoke. It was shortly after this event, in May 2017, that documentary filmmaker Nisha Pahuja came into their lives. Born in Delhi, India, Pahuja moved to Canada in the 1970s with her family, but she's spent over 25 years filming in India, a country which she calls "the greatest teacher of complexity." At the time, Pahuja was following the work done by [The Center for Help and Social Justice](https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.centreforsocialjustice.net/__;!!Iwwt!SqdN1dUFKgfzDmYdgO6LCMi9eVQA-mjMCeV_Uh1g8XARX-VFdo9VJ2-yQ66OixnzoK0gG1KooefkPlW23J0r0DI$) and the [Srijan Foundation](https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.srijanjhk.org/genesis/__;!!Iwwt!SqdN1dUFKgfzDmYdgO6LCMi9eVQA-mjMCeV_Uh1g8XARX-VFdo9VJ2-yQ66OixnzoK0gG1KooefkPlW2t8qnC24$), nonprofits that focused on empowering women and children in the villages of Jharkhand. She was interested in their ongoing project to create awareness among men and boys about the prejudices that they may hold to bolster the belief that women are inferior to men. Ranjit had been a part of this project. After his daughter's assault, the Srijan Foundation began to work closely with him for justice. Pahuja says she was struck by Ranjit's actions after his daughter's rape. As shown in the movie, many villagers insisted that his daughter should marry one of the rapists to keep the peace in the village. Ranjit refused — and filed a complaint with police. Ranjit and his family's courage and their fight drew her to the story, Pahuja says. In a country where a woman [is raped every 20 minutes](https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/one-rape-every-20-minutes-in-country/articleshow/22040599.cms__;!!Iwwt!SqdN1dUFKgfzDmYdgO6LCMi9eVQA-mjMCeV_Uh1g8XARX-VFdo9VJ2-yQ66OixnzoK0gG1KooefkPlW2jItY5LY$), often survivors struggle to have their voices heard. "It's very rare for a father to support his daughter this way," says Pahuja. Research and filming for the documentary spanned three-and-a-half years. ### A changed man, a determined daughter Over the course of the film, Ranjit transforms from a simple farmer to a man determined to get justice for his daughter. "After what they've done, we have to fight back," he says. There were moments in the film when Ranjit wavers. He takes to drinking excessively, something he never used to do. He avoids the social workers who provide him with support and remind him about attending court hearings. He's painfully aware of the poor harvest that season due to drought and the extra expense that the trial is costing him. He's in debt, his family has been isolated by the experience and he and his wife are worried about their safety and the safety of their other children. But it was the daughter's insistence that the rapists be brought to justice that particularly impressed Pahuja. "I was struck by Kiran's spirit and strength," she says. "She refused to back down and allow her parents to drop the case." This especially hit home on the day of her testimony. "Before then, I was always anxious for her and the trauma that she'd experienced," says Pahuja. On the morning that the daughter was due to testify in court, while she was having breakfast, Pahuja says she asked her on camera, while she was having breakfast, how she was feeling — footage that wasn't included in the documentary. She replied that she was nervous and scared. "However, when she walked into that courtroom, her posture and confidence were striking," says Pahuja. Ranjit later told her that there were moments when his daughter cried when she spoke about what happened, but her voice was clear and for the most part, she was very composed. "It really amazed me," says Pahuja. "She's still a strong-willed tough young woman, very defiant. Both her parents had moments where they wondered whether they were doing the right thing but her determination was unwavering. I remember wondering, where does that resolve come from, especially in someone that young?" ### A young woman's bold decision Because of the stigma involved, the identities of rape victims are never revealed in India. And while the documentary does not name the village where the daughter lives and uses a pseudonym to protect her privacy online, her face is shown throughout the film. That's because the daughter, now 20, chose to reveal herself after watching the footage. At the end of the film, the filmmakers clarify "Kiran is one of a handful of survivors who chose to reveal their identity. She did so after watching her 13-year-old self in this film. Her parents fully support her decision. After consulting extensively with women's rights activists, the filmmakers decided to reveal her." There are many moments in the documentary that show us the daughter's quiet strength and spunky personality. She paints her fingernails bright pink, like 13-year-olds anywhere. Yet her experience has clearly changed her. In one scene she wonders, "I keep thinking whether I will fall in love or not. I think about that a lot. And if I do, how do I tell him what happened to me?" At times during filming, Pahuja admits to feeling fear for herself and her crew. "I wouldn't say we were entirely welcome, but the \[villagers\] weren't hostile all the time. People would smile at us and invite us for tea. As the case wore on, and it was clear that the family wasn't going to drop the charges, the tensions started to rise." More than anything, she says she felt remorse that she was part of the dismantling of community bonds. "I knew that attitudes had to change and they can't suppress the truth, but I understand the value of community, especially in a culture like India," she says. "The support that you get from it — economic, social, emotional — these are complex systems of survival. So I was very aware of the need for disrupting as well as sadness at the fact that we were disrupting it." ### A landmark ruling The judgment came in 2018 after a 14-month trial. Judge Diwakar Pandey who was overseeing the case, stunned the court and the general public with a landmark decision — he found the three men guilty and sentenced them each to 25 years in prison. They are now serving out the sentence but have filed an appeal in a higher court. Conviction in rape cases in India has jumped from [27% in 2018 to 39% in 2020, per data from India's Home Ministry.](https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/scroll.in/latest/1019699/conviction-rate-in-rape-cases-increased-by-12-from-2018-to-2020-centre-tells-rajya-sabha__;!!Iwwt!SqdN1dUFKgfzDmYdgO6LCMi9eVQA-mjMCeV_Uh1g8XARX-VFdo9VJ2-yQ66OixnzoK0gG1KooefkPlW2SpgIR20$) That's largely because of the death of a young woman aboard a bus in Delhi, one of India's most horrific cases of gang rape in 2012, after which laws changed. That year saw the introduction of the Protection of Children's from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) — fast tracking trials when minors are victims of sexual assault. The case that the film centers on was tried under POCSO, which relies heavily on the testimony of the sexual assault survivor rather than focusing on the medical examination and eyewitness testimony, as is the practice in cases where adult women have been raped. Perhaps this case would have a ripple effect in courtrooms across the nation, reporters surmise in the documentary. Local activists say the case has helped other women speak up and seek justice too. "In India, there are tough laws against rape, but there are also many barriers to getting justice," says [S Mona Sinha](https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.linkedin.com/in/smonasinha/__;!!Iwwt!SqdN1dUFKgfzDmYdgO6LCMi9eVQA-mjMCeV_Uh1g8XARX-VFdo9VJ2-yQ66OixnzoK0gG1KooefkPlW2y7OIrTk$), the global executive director of the human rights organization Equality Now. "We are building stronger laws that center a woman's lack of consent as a deciding factor." Another barrier to justice is that around the world, women often aren't valued enough or thought to have the same rights as men, Sinha says. "In the film, we see that the village headman is concerned about the boys' future, but what about the girl who went through the trauma? We see a father who struggles and perseveres to have his daughter's voice heard, to say that she's an equal and deserves justice and not to be married off to the person who raped her. He stands up for her in the face of immense intimidation — a male allyship that is very powerful," Sinha says. She hopes the film will break some of the legal and cultural barriers that prevent women from being perceived as equal and from receiving justice. The last scene of the documentary offers a reminder of the power of those barriers by explaining the title of the film. An elated Ranjit receives news of the verdict — his daughter's aggressors have been jailed. He is relieved and joyful. He says that he remembers how people once told him, "You can't kill a tiger by yourself." Ranjit says, "I said I would kill the tiger, and I did." _Kamala Thiagarajan is a freelance journalist based in Madurai, Southern India. She reports on global health, science and development and has been published in_ TheNew York Times, The British Medical Journal_, the BBC,_ The Guardian _and other outlets. You can find her on X @kamal\_t_

When Tapas Kumar Bhanja was appointed to investigate conditions in West Bengal’s overcrowded prisons in 1990, he was not prepared for what he discovered. [Women](https://www.theguardian.com/society/women) in prisons were being sexually abused by male inmates, according to the now 66-year-old lawyer. Many of the survivors gave birth after the assaults. Lucy (not her real name) was 13 when the well-to-do family she worked for as a domestic help reported her to the police, alleging theft. “It was almost 25 years ago,” says Lucy, who has a speech disability and holds up her fingers to indicate the numbers. After being held for a month in an adult prison, Lucy was taken in a police van to appear in court, escorted by two police officials. > In January there were 196 children living with their incarcerated mothers across the West Bengal prisons Tapas Kumar Bhanja, adviser to Calcutta high court On the way back from the court, Lucy was gagged and blindfolded and raped by the two police officials and the driver of the van. She motions to show that she froze when they pinned her down and took off her clothes. After the authorities were notified she was transferred to a government shelter. Eight months later, Lucy gave birth to a daughter. Thirty-four years after starting his first investigation, at the request of the Calcutta high court, Bhanja says the plight of women in Indian prisons may be even worse now. “Sexual abuse of incarcerated women is still a reality in West Bengal,” says Bhanja. “Women are being sexually assaulted in custody. As recently as in early 2020, over a dozen incarcerated women I interviewed in West Bengal told me privately that they were all assaulted in custody and became pregnant.” West Bengal has only one prison exclusively for women, known as a “correctional home”. Elsewhere in the state, the [1,885 or so female prisoners](http://www.wbcorrectionalservices.gov.in/about.html) are kept in sections of men’s prisons, where wealthy or powerful inmates often have privileges that allow them access to other areas. [](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/feb/23/rape-sexual-abuse-women-babies-indian-prisons-west-bengal#img-2) Tapas Kumar Bhanja outside Calcutta high court in Kolkata, India, where he was an appointed as a court adviser, or amicus curiae. Photograph: Sarah Aziz The abuse starts on the day the women are sent to prison, according to Bhanja, as they pass through the male wards to enter the female enclosures. On 8 February, Bhanja presented his findings – based on hundreds of interviews with female prisoners – to the high court in Kolkata in a formal request for judicial intervention known as a [writ petition](https://main.sci.gov.in/pdf/Forms/writ%20format.pdf). The next day, the Indian supreme court [expressed concerns](https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/top-court-takes-note-of-pregnancies-in-bengal-prisons-seeks-report-101707506583408.html) over his report. Bhanja described the conditions prisoners in the state were living under as “inhuman”, citing instances such as the murder of a man in custody, evidence regarding torture in prisons being concealed. He also noted claims that female inmates were becoming pregnant while in custody and giving birth in prison, despite there being no law that allows conjugal visits to prisoners. “As of January, this year, there were 196 children living with their incarcerated mothers across West Bengal prisons,” says Bhanja, citing figures shared with him by the state government after he was made “[amicus curiae](https://www.indianbarassociation.org/law-should-be-enacted-for-appointment-and-procedure-od-amicus-curiae-in-india-as-an-effective-dispute-settlement-mechanismb/)”, or expert adviser, to the Calcutta high court in 2018. When the supreme court requested further information, the West Bengal Correctional Services reported that 62 children had been born in the state’s prisons between January 2020 and last December. Most women were pregnant when they arrived and others became pregnant while on brief periods of parole, the authorities claimed. The state government has described Bhanja’s allegations as a “slur” on female prisoners. Laxmi Narayan Meena, additional director general of correctional services in West Bengal, calls the allegations “incorrect, motivated and demeaning”. Bhanja says the authorities refuse to accept that the prison system enables sexual abuse. “Many heads will roll if these abuses come out in the open,” he says. “Members of the prison staff get large sums of hush money regularly from the convict officers.” > The women inmates, including her, were regularly ‘supplied’ to powerful male inmates Pallabi Ghosh The lawyer says “complete reform” is required to prevent the sexual abuse of female inmates in India, including setting up women-only prisons. His call for mandatory pregnancy tests for women entering prison – to rule out the possibility of sexual abuse while in custody – was [rejected by the Calcutta high court](https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/calcutta-high-court-dismisses-plea-for-mandatory-pregnancy-tests-for-women-prisoners/articleshow/107872634.cms) on 21 February on the grounds that it violated the women’s privacy. Pallabi Ghosh, the founder of the anti-trafficking charity Impact and Dialogue Foundation, says sexual violence towards female prisoners is “very, very common”. “One of the trafficking survivors I worked with was formerly held in a prison in India – but outside West Bengal. She said that the women inmates there, including her, were regularly ‘supplied’ to powerful male inmates. “However, it is terribly difficult to gather any kind of data in this area,” says Ghosh. “Women who have been sexually abused in custody are too terrified to speak out. They fear violent retaliation by those in power – the ones who abused them.” [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/feb/23/rape-sexual-abuse-women-babies-indian-prisons-west-bengal#EmailSignup-skip-link-26) Sign up to Global Dispatch Get a different world view with a roundup of the best news, features and pictures, curated by our global development team **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion On a recent visit to the Alipore Women’s Correctional Home in Kolkata, Bhanja found 15 children and one pregnant woman. He says the women were too scared to tell him if they got pregnant while in custody, but confirmed that their children had been born in prison. “If the women overtly talk about their abuse to authorities, they will face serious reprisal. They are at the risk of further torture within the prisons by convict officers, and social stigma outside, if they are later released. That is why none of the women report such abuse to authorities directly,” says Bhanja. “Based on three decades of experience interviewing incarcerated women in this state, I strongly suspect that most women inmates who give birth in prisons in West Bengal do so after getting pregnant while in custody. Aryeh Neier, an American human rights activist who co-wrote a 1991 report on [prison conditions in India](https://www.hrw.org/reports/INDIA914.pdf), documenting the gruelling reality of rape in custody and consequent pregnancies, says he is not surprised to learn that the abuses he reported more than three decades ago are still prevalent. “Those abuses include the sexual exploitation of many female detainees as well as some male detainees. Over the years, there have been several scathing reports on India’s prisons and jails. These do not seem to lead to significant changes. “This should be a source of national embarrassment,” says Neier, who co-founded Human Rights Watch. [](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/feb/23/rape-sexual-abuse-women-babies-indian-prisons-west-bengal#img-3) Alipore Women’s Correctional Home in Kolkata, where Tapas Kumar Bhanja found 15 children who had been born in prison. He says the women were too scared to tell him if they had become pregnant while in custody. Photograph: Friedrich Stark/Alamy A [2018 report](https://wcd.nic.in/sites/default/files/Prison%20Report%20Compiled.pdf) on female prisoners by the Ministry of Women and Child Development says that violence against incarcerated women – “including sexual violence by inmates and authorities” – had been reported all over the country. “However, official reports remain underestimated due to fear in prisoners of retaliation as they are forced to stay in the same place as their perpetrators,” the report said. Experts say the most economically or socially marginalised women are far more vulnerable to sexual abuse in custody. “There are rigid power dynamics in place in prisons. The hierarchy makes women belonging to marginalised communities targets for sexual predators,” says an official from a Delhi-based organisation, who prefers to stay anonymous due to the “sensitivity of the issue”. When Lucy was raped, according to court records, fellow inmates realised what had happened to her and alerted the authorities. A medical examination confirmed the assault – and also revealed the fact that Lucy was a child. “No one had bothered to find out before,” according to Lucy. Her attackers were arrested and charged. While one of the accused died in custody, the other two were acquitted a decade later. Asked if she feels justice was delivered in her case, Lucy shakes her head. She points to herself and then shrugs. Sitting by her side, her 65-year-old uncle Gabriel says: “No one cares about the pain of poor people like her – poor people like us.” In the tiny one-bedroom home that she shares with three other family members in a crowded Kolkata slum, Lucy, a Christian, turns to a makeshift altar and puts her hands together in prayer.

Image source, Getty Images Image caption, The issue of rape has often triggered protests in India **The alleged gang rape of a tourist with Brazilian-Spanish dual nationality in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand has led to outrage.** The 28-year-old woman and her husband, who were on a motorbike tour, had stopped for the night in Dumki district when the alleged attack took place. Police say that they have arrested four men and are searching for three more. The identities of the men, who are also accused of beating the woman's partner, have not been disclosed yet. The couple had travelled to several parts of Asia on their motorbikes before arriving in India a few months ago. Over the weekend, the woman posted a video on their Instagram page which has 234,000 followers. "Seven men raped me. They have beaten us and robbed us, although not many things \[were taken\] because what they wanted was to rape me," she said in Spanish, adding that the men beat them and threatened to kill them. In a separate video, the husband, who is Spanish, said: "My mouth is destroyed, but my partner is worse than me. They have hit me with the helmet several times, with a stone on the head. Thank goodness she was wearing the jacket and that stops the blows a little." The videos are no longer up on their page. Dumka's police superintendent Pitamber Singh Kherwar told reporters the couple flagged down a patrol van which took them to a local health centre for treatment. "The couple were speaking in a mixture of English and Spanish so the patrolling team could not understand them initially. But they appeared visibly injured so they were taken for treatment," he said, adding that the couple then told doctors about the alleged rape. The Brazilian embassy in India told the BBC that the woman and her husband "were victims of a serious criminal attack". The embassy said it had contacted the woman and local authorities as well as the Spanish embassy, as the couple had used Spanish passports to enter India. "The Spanish embassy said that it had offered all the assistance available, including psychological care, but that the victims had declined the offer as they were already being looked after by the Indian emergency services," the Brazilian embassy said, adding that it would continue to "monitor all developments". The BBC has reached out to the Spanish embassy for comment. "We need to stand united in our commitment to end violence against women everywhere in the world," the Spanish embassy in India posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday. Conversations around rape and sexual violence became more prominent in India after the 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman on a bus in Delhi led to huge protests and changes to the country's rape laws. But tens of thousands of rapes are reported every year and activists say there is still a long way to go to tackle the issue. Over the weekend, several women shared their stories of dealing with unwanted sexual attention while travelling in India. The chief of India's National Commission for Women, Rekha Sharma, also sparked criticism after she responded to a post from a US journalist who wrote that while India was one of his favourite places, "the level of sexual aggression" he witnessed while living in the country was "unlike anywhere else I have ever been". He also gave a couple of examples of sexual assault faced by women he knew. "Did you ever report the incident to police?" Ms Sharma wrote. "If not then you are totally an irresponsible person. Writing only on social media and defaming whole country is not good choice." The response led to an outpouring of criticism from people on social media. Several people have also left comments under the couple's Instagram and YouTube videos, expressing solidarity and sympathy with them. * [Rape in India](/news/topics/c1038wnxn2wt) * [Women in India](/news/topics/c55w63pqgx4t) * [Asia](/news/topics/c5rznn0nvvyt) * [India](/news/world/asia/india)

NEW DELHI — Police in eastern India say they have arrested three men and are pursuing four others in the gang rape of a Brazilian tourist, a case that has drawn cries of fury and shame from those in Indian society who say sexual violence against women remains a stubbornly endemic problem. The attack on the Brazilian travel blogger and her Spanish partner took place in a forest late Friday, as the couple were camping while traveling by motorbike across eastern India to Nepal. Struggling to fight back tears and showing bruises on their faces, the couple said in an Instagram post Saturday morning that seven men held knives against their throats and took turns sexually assaulting the woman while beating and restraining her male partner. Local police in Jharkhand state said in a news release that they had taken the victims to a nearby hospital and confirmed the outlines of their account. All seven men have been identified and a special investigation team has been set up to arrest the four still at large, police in the Dumka district said. While cases of rape targeting Indian women from lower castes and Indigenous tribal communities are rife, and often receive little notice and aren’t prosecuted, this incident involving a foreigner — who went public on social media to her more than 200,000 followers — focused national attention to an unusual degree. National newspapers covered the case, and women’s rights activists, politicians and even Bollywood celebrities weighed in on social media to condemn what they described as an intractable problem despite efforts at cultural and legal reform. Karanjeet Kaur, a writer who published an [op-ed Monday about her outrage](https://theprint.in/opinion/im-an-indian-woman-im-tired-of-outraging-jharkhand-tourist-gangrape-wont-change-a-thing/1987960/) over sexual violence against Indian women, said the case sparked so much discussion because the survivor stood out by sharing an experience all too common for Indian women. “We have become so inured to violence against women that only when the contours of a case are very different does it make a dent in our conscience,” she said in a phone interview. “Otherwise our bodies, our minds, our autonomy does not matter at all.” In December 2012, thousands of Indians took to the streets to protest the gang rape and death of a 22-year-old student, a case that prompted the Indian government to expand the legal definition of rape and introduce the death penalty as a possible sentence for rapists. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi first ran for the office in 2014, women’s safety featured prominently in his outreach to female voters, and nearly a decade later, his administration remains sensitive to any potential political blowback from controversies over crimes against women. Yet violent crimes against women continue to [rise](https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/are-crimes-against-women-on-the-rise-explained/article67622430.ece#:~:text=With%2014%2C247%20cases%20in%202022,are%20being%20registered%20in%20Delhi.), according to national statistics, and high-profile rape cases continue to surface with alarming regularity, largely as a result of what many say is a culture of downplaying sexual harassment and violence — and of giving impunity to the perpetrators — in a patriarchal society. Last year, India’s Supreme Court criticized the Gujarat government, led by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), for the early release of 11 men convicted of gang-raping a Muslim woman, Bilkis Bano, during riots in the state in 2002. Upon their release, the convicts had been garlanded with flowers by well-wishers and praised by a BJP lawmaker as good Brahmins, the highest Hindu caste. In January, the Supreme Court canceled their release and [ordered them returned to custody](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-67909348). India’s [female wrestlers](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/09/india-women-wrestlers-protest-sexual-harassment/?itid=lk_inline_manual_24) staged demonstrations starting in January last year against the chair of the wrestling federation, accusing him of repeatedly groping women over the previous decade. But the powerful BJP politician faced no consequences until a court ordered police to investigate the case in April 2023 The chief of India’s National Commission for Women, Rekha Sharma, was herself accused of downplaying sexual violence soon after the Brazilian blogger’s experience became public. When an American journalist [retweeted the couple’s account of their assault](https://twitter.com/davidvolodzko/status/1763979126929604918) and told of experiences of his own, saying he had never witnessed so much sexual aggression as in India, Sharma took him to task for [“defaming” India.](https://twitter.com/sharmarekha/status/1764166577212313709)

India says it has successfully conducted its first test flight of a domestically developed missile that can carry multiple warheads NEW DELHI -- India has successfully conducted its first test flight of a domestically developed missile that can carry multiple warheads, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Monday. The missile is equipped with multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles, Modi said in a post on X, formerly known as [Twitter](https://abcnews.go.com/alerts/Twitter). India has been developing its medium- and long-range missile systems since the 1990s as its strategic competition with [China](https://abcnews.go.com/alerts/Taiwan) grows. In 2021, India successfully tested Agni-5, a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 5,000 kilometers (3,125 miles) that is believed to be capable of targeting nearly all of China. Agni missiles are long-range surface-to-surface ballistic missiles. India is also able to strike anywhere in neighboring Pakistan, its archrival with which it has fought three wars since they gained independence from British colonialists in 1947.  [  ](https://abcnews.go.com/International/haitis-notorious-gang-leader-plots-future-amid-rebellion/story?id=107994731) [  ](https://abcnews.go.com/US/3-children-2-adults-dead-after-school-bus/story?id=108026854) [  ](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trumps-tiktok-ban-reversal-after-meeting-megadonor-stake/story?id=108013785) [  ](https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/us-man-convicted-murder-rape-life-sentence-attack-108003825) [  ](https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Culture/kate-middleton-surgery-photo-timeline/story?id=108017783)

_Content Warning: The following story describes circumstances surrounding the gang rape of a tourist that took place in India last week._   Police escort men accused of allegedly raping a tourist to a district court in Dumka, in India's Jharkhand state, on March 4. The attack took place on March 1; the woman posted a video describing what happened on social media. AFP via Getty Images In early March, news of a rape spread rapidly on social media. A woman, speaking Spanish, posted a video on Instagram that was later [re-posted on X](https://twitter.com/Slatzism/status/1763960879807074673?s=20), formerly Twitter. "Something has happened to us that we would not wish on anyone," she said. "Seven men have raped me. They have beaten us and robbed us, although not many things \[were stolen\] because what they wanted was to rape me." "We are in the hospital with the police. It happened tonight, here in India." The date was March 1. The woman's face was covered in bruises. The husband and wife told the police that they were on a motorcycle trip around the world and had camped overnight in a tent in a remote area when the incident occurred. News of the rape spread rapidly on social media, triggering debate about the prevalence of sexual violence in India. And some activists who address sexual violence in India say the media attention even hastened arrests in a country where justice for sexual assault victims has often been slow to come – or even non-existent. On March 4, Jharkhand Director General of Police, [Ajay Kumar Singh informed the media](https://www.financialexpress.com/india-news/spanish-tourist-gang-rape-jharkhand-police-form-sit-to-nab-3-remaining-accused-ncw-steps-in-top-developments/3413186/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1709568597) that all seven suspects had been identified and that four were in custody. The media circulated the video of their arrest and [posted it on X](https://twitter.com/Slatzism/status/1763960879807074673?s=20). ### Statistics about rape in India In the past few years, other high profile rapes have called attention to the issue of sexual violence in India. And one of this year's Oscar-nominated documentaries. [_To Kill a Tiger,_](https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2024/02/18/1231793908/oscar-nommed-doc-a-13-year-old-and-her-dad-demand-justice-after-she-is-raped) is about the gang rape of a 13-year-old girl in her village. After the gang rape this month, an American journalist posted online about the "sexual aggression" he has witnessed on visits to India. His allegation elicited a response from Rekha Sharma, the chairperson of India's National Commission for Women, a government body that advises on issues related to women and also investigates complaints. Sharma [wrote on X](https://x.com/sharmarekha/status/1764541285048717513?s=20): "According to data, over 6 million tourists arrive in India every year, many of them are single women, and they holiday safely in India, as India takes the safety of women very seriously, as evidenced by its implementation of stringent laws over time." What does the data show? Official government statistics do indicate an increase in the reporting of rape cases in recent years. In 2022, India's National Crime Records Bureau cited [just over 31,000 cases](https://www.statista.com/statistics/632493/reported-rape-cases-india/) for a country of 1.3 billion people. In 2005, that number was a little over 18,000. But by comparison, the U.S. reported 133,294 rapes in 2022 in a population of 331 million – a higher prevalence of sexual violence. However, activists in India question the official count. They assert that underreporting of rape is common because of the stigma for survivors. According to the 2017 edition of India's [National Family Health Survey](https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__rchiips.org_nfhs_NFHS-2D4Reports_India.pdf&d=DwMFaQ&c=E2nBno7hEddFhl23N5nD1Q&r=0ESrOJc8IqAL-VjQNnEkkg&m=5blX6V-REAZz5lW-p0QJj839Gyn0yPXwydhKyxfuY0U&s=mU5GTbDZ39XkGFFiawGS7rc49cinbO0pGjp8sxo7PHs&e=), four out of five women who have experienced sexual violence never tell anyone about it. ### A lot of commenters miss the point, say activists. "The discussion that we should be having now is not whether India is a rape capital or not, but about what we can do to create a safer environment," says Elsa Marie D'Silva, founder of [Red Dot Foundation](https://reddotfoundation.org/) in Delhi. Her foundation crowdsources information on sexual harassment and abuse in public spaces. Its Safecity reporting platform, available both online and as an app, allows women to make anonymous reports of sexual violence, building a database that includes areas and times where these attacks have occurred in order to make others more aware. "We implicitly trust the survivors of attacks and while we allow anonymous reporting, we record what happened in extensive detail," D'Silva says. "This helps us collect data and alerts us to a pattern of attacks." To create a safe environment, India doesn't need new laws, she says. India already has strong laws regarding sentencing for convicted rapists. "We need to believe survivors of attacks instead of blaming them for instigating the rape by what they were wearing or doing, or how late they were out at night," D'Silva says. "And then we need to acknowledge that while India may not be the only place where rape happens, sexual assault is still a very serious problem that we're dealing with." ### How the legal system has responded Government data shows a low conviction rates for people charged with rape: with [only 28 out of every 100](https://rishihood.edu.in/crime-against-women-rape-cases-in-india/#:~:text=Conviction%20rate%20according%20to%20years%20wise&text=However%2C%20conviction%20rate%20is%20as,rape%20cases%20end%20in%20acquittal.) receiving any jail time. Many cases of rape drag on in courts for years — sometimes for over a decade, says Sunitha Krishnan, founder of Prajwala, a non-governmental organization that aids victims of sex trafficking. "Much of these delays are caused by counsels of perpetrators of sexual violence finding legal loopholes that their clients can take advantage of, or just filing injunctions to delay the verdict. These legal games are a problem. Eventually, the prosecution of such cases falls through, because after so many years, victims refuse to cooperate. They just want their lives back. And when cases drag on, it sends out a message to rapists that they can get away with anything and puts the survivor at risk to harm in the future as well." Lengthy trials, which D'Silva describes as "exhausting, emotionally and physically," likely discourage women from even reporting attacks. In this particular case, however, the Indian authorities were quick to announce that action was taken swiftly. In addition to the arrests a check for one million rupees ($12,000) was issued — money from a government fund that allows victims of crime to claim compensation or monetary relief even before the perpetrator is convicted. However, this relief is rare and not extended to all victims, says Krishnan, the activist who works with women who have been trafficked — and certainly not with the speed it was given after the March 1 gang rape. This rapid response was possibly because of widespread media attention and the fear that the media fallout from the incident would affect tourism, but this speedy justice is seldom extended to the average victim of sexual assault in India, say the advocates interviewed for this story. NPR asked India's National Commission for Women to address criticism of the justice system in its treatment of those who are raped. The commission did not respond by our deadline for publication. ### Family support The advocates also note another reason the rape statistics in India may be an undercount. They say that families of women who are raped sometimes shame them into silence because they're afraid that the news of the rape could affect the woman's marriage prospects or the family's reputation. "It was heartening that the Spanish woman who was raped had the support of her husband," says D'Silva. "Ultimately it's also about creating conditions where women feel safer about speaking out about rape and reporting it." _Kamala Thiagarajan is a freelance journalist based in Madurai, Southern India. She reports on global health, science and development and has been published in_ The New York Times, The British Medical Journal_, the BBC,_ The Guardian _and other outlets. You can find her on X @kamal\_t_

Doctors at government hospitals in several Indian states have gone on strike in a protest after the rape and murder of a trainee doctor in Kolkata on Friday. The 31-year-old woman was attacked at the state-run RG Kar medical college, where she was a resident doctor, after she went to rest in a seminar room following dinner with colleagues. Her brutalised body was found with multiple injuries and an autopsy confirmed sexual assault and homicide. On Saturday police arrested Sanjay Roy, a “civic volunteer” at the hospital, in connection with the attack. Roy’s duties were unclear but local media reports said he operated in part as a tout, helping to speed up admissions for patients in return for money. Protests by doctors demanding justice and better workplace security that initially began in Kolkata, in West Bengal, have now spread to other parts of the country. “This decision is not made lightly but is necessary to ensure that our voices are heard,” the doctors’ federation said in a statement. The federation said it was demanding not only a speedy trial but also an inquiry to pinpoint the factors that made the crime possible, and urgent measures to improve the safety of doctors, especially women, in hospitals. Nisha Alum, a nurse at Holy Family hospital in Delhi, said: “We have learnt nothing from [the 2012 gang-rape and murder](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/20/india-executes-four-men-convicted-of-2012-delhi-bus-and). Forget being safe on the roads at night. Women are not even safe at their place of work.” The victim’s father had bought her a car six months ago, worried about the late hours she worked and travelling at night. “I wanted her to be safe on the roads at night but she wasn’t even safe at the hospital as a doctor on duty,” he told reporters. Dr Rajan Sharma, a former president of the Indian Medical Association, said urgent changes needed to be made to the way government hospitals operated, particularly with regards to access. “Why can’t we post security guards?” Sharma said. “Why can’t we have proper screening, along with just one entrance and one exit? And strictly enforced visiting hours? These crimes don’t happen in private hospitals for a reason – they have systems in place. It’s as simple as that.” Doctors in India say that on top of sexual violence they also face the threat of attacks from angry family members of patients, especially after delivering bad news. A survey by the Indian Medical Association found 75% of doctors in India had faced some form of violence.

Getty Images Doctors are protesting against the rape and murder of a colleague in a government hospital in Kolkata Early on Friday morning, a 31-year-old female trainee doctor retired to sleep in a seminar hall after a gruelling day at one of India’s oldest hospitals. It was the last time she was seen alive. The next morning, her colleagues discovered her half-naked body on the podium, bearing extensive injuries. Police later arrested a hospital volunteer worker in connection with what they say is a case of rape and murder at Kolkata’s 138-year-old RG Kar Medical College. Tens of thousands of women in Kolkata and across West Bengal state are expected to participate in a 'Reclaim the Night' march at midnight on Wednesday, demanding the "independence to live in freedom and without fear". The march takes place just before India's Independence Day on Thursday. Outraged doctors have struck work both in the city and across India, demanding a strict federal law to protect them. The tragic incident has again cast a spotlight on the violence against doctors and nurses in the country. Reports of doctors, regardless of gender, being assaulted by patients and their relatives have gained widespread attention. Women - who make up [nearly 30% of India’s doctors](https://www.dasra.org/individual-resources/136) and 80% of the nursing staff - are more vulnerable than their male colleagues. The crime in the Kolkata hospital last week exposed the alarming security risks faced by the medical staff in many of India's state-run health facilities. Getty Images The incident happened in the 138-year-old RG Kar Medical College, one of the oldest in India At RG Kar Hospital, which sees over 3,500 patients daily, the overworked trainee doctors - some working up to 36 hours straight - had no designated rest rooms, forcing them to seek rest in a third-floor seminar room. Reports indicate that the arrested suspect, a volunteer worker with a troubled past, had unrestricted access to the ward and was captured on CCTV. Police allege that no background checks were conducted on the volunteer. "The hospital has always been our first home; we only go home to rest. We never imagined it could be this unsafe. Now, after this incident, we're terrified," says Madhuparna Nandi, a junior doctor at Kolkata’s 76-year-old National Medical College. Dr Nandi’s own journey highlights how female doctors in India's government hospitals have become resigned to working in conditions that compromise their security.  Dr Madhuparna Nandi says there are no designated rest rooms and toilets for female doctors at her hospital At her hospital, where she is a resident in gynaecology and obstetrics, there are no designated rest rooms and separate toilets for female doctors. “I use the patients’ or the nurses' toilets if they allow me. When I work late, I sometimes sleep in an empty patient bed in the ward or in a cramped waiting room with a bed and basin,” Dr Nandi told me. She says she feels insecure even in the room where she rests after 24-hour shifts that start with outpatient duty and continue through ward rounds and maternity rooms. One night in 2021, during the peak of the Covid pandemic, some men barged into her room and woke her by touching her, demanding, “Get up, get up. See our patient.” “I was completely shaken by the incident. But we never imagined it would come to a point where a doctor could be raped and murdered in the hospital,” Dr Nandi says. Getty Images Some 30% of doctors in India are women, according to one estimate What happened on Friday was not an isolated incident. The most shocking case remains that of [Aruna Shanbaug](https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/soutikbiswas/2009/12/should_india_allow_euthanasia.html), a nurse at a prominent Mumbai hospital, who was left in a persistent vegetative state after being raped and strangled by a ward attendant in 1973. She died in 2015, after 42 years of severe brain damage and paralysis. More recently, in Kerala, [Vandana Das,](https://english.mathrubhumi.com/news/kerala/a-year-since-dr-vandana-was-brutally-murdered-at-kottarakkara-taluk-hospital-1.9547382) a 23-year-old medical intern, was fatally stabbed with surgical scissors by a drunken patient last year. In overcrowded government hospitals with unrestricted access, doctors often face mob fury from patients' relatives after a death or over demands for immediate treatment. Kamna Kakkar, an anaesthetist, remembers a harrowing incident during a night shift in an intensive care unit (ICU) during the pandemic in 2021 at her hospital in Haryana in northern India. “I was the lone doctor in the ICU when three men, flaunting a politician’s name, forced their way in, demanding a much in-demand controlled drug. I gave in to protect myself, knowing the safety of my patients was at stake," Dr Kakkar told me. Namrata Mitra, a Kolkata-based pathologist who studied at the RG Kar Medical College, says her doctor father would often accompany her to work because she felt unsafe. Getty Images Doctors in Delhi's largest hospital Aiims staged a protest against the Kolkata incident “During my on-call duty, I took my father with me. Everyone laughed, but I had to sleep in a room tucked away in a long, dark corridor with a locked iron gate that only the nurse could open if a patient arrived,” Dr Mitra wrote in a Facebook post over the weekend. “I’m not ashamed to admit I was scared. What if someone from the ward - an attendant, or even a patient - tried something? I took advantage of the fact that my father was a doctor, but not everyone has that privilege.” When she was working in a public health centre in a district in West Bengal, Dr Mitra spent nights in a dilapidated one-storey building that served as the doctor’s hostel. “From dusk, a group of boys would gather around the house, making lewd comments as we went in and out for emergencies. They would ask us to check their blood pressure as an excuse to touch us and they would peek through the broken bathroom windows,” she wrote. Years later, during an emergency shift at a government hospital, “a group of drunk men passed by me, creating a ruckus, and one of them even groped me”, Dr Mitra said. “When I tried to complain, I found the police officers dozing off with their guns in hand.” Getty Images Young female doctors don't seem to be very hopeful of reforms to secure them Things have worsened over the years, says Saraswati Datta Bodhak, a pharmacologist at a government hospital in West Bengal's Bankura district. "Both my daughters are young doctors and they tell me that hospital campuses in the state are overrun by anti-social elements, drunks and touts," she says. Dr Bodhak recalls seeing a man with a gun roaming around a top government hospital in Kolkata during a visit. India lacks a stringent federal law to protect healthcare workers. Although 25 states have some laws to prevent violence against them, convictions are “almost non-existent”, RV Asokan, president of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), an organisation of doctors, told me. A 2015 survey by IMA found that [75% of doctors in India have faced some form of violence](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)31297-7/fulltext) at work. “Security in hospitals is almost absent,” he says. “One reason is that nobody thinks of hospitals as conflict zones.” Some states like Haryana have deployed private bouncers to strengthen security at government hospitals. In 2022, the [federal government](https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1806206) asked the states to deploy trained security forces for sensitive hospitals, install CCTV cameras, set up quick reaction teams, restrict entry to "undesirable individuals" and file complaints against offenders. Nothing much has happened, clearly. Even the protesting doctors don't seem to be very hopeful. “Nothing will change... The expectation will be that doctors should work round the clock and endure abuse as a norm,” says Dr Mitra. It is a disheartening thought. Read more on this story: [ Inside India's first heat stroke emergency room ----------------------------------------------- ](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn00nkzdvkjo) [ India's Covid doctors demand action after attacks ------------------------------------------------- ](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-57648320)

Jeet Sengupta 'We are seizing the night', the protestors at the march said Tens of thousands of women in West Bengal state marched through the streets on Wednesday night in protest against the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at a state-run hospital in Kolkata last week. The Reclaim the Night march was the culmination of nearly a week of frenzied protests ignited by the brutal killing of the 31-year-old at the RG Kar Medical College last Friday. After a gruelling 36-hour shift, she had fallen asleep in a seminar room due to the lack of a designated rest area. The next morning, her colleagues discovered her half-naked body on the podium, bearing extensive injuries. A hospital volunteer worker has been arrested in connection with the crime. Responding to calls on social media, women from all walks of life marched across Kolkata city and throughout the state on a rainy Wednesday night. Though protests were largely peaceful, they were marred by clashes between the police and a small group of unidentified men who barged into the RG Kar Hospital, the site of the doctor’s murder, and ransacked the emergency department. Police fired tear gas to disperse the unruly crowd. Some police vehicles were also damaged. Smaller protests were also held in many other Indian cities like Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune. [ Raped Indian doctor's colleague speaks of trauma and pain --------------------------------------------------------- ](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c80ey272d81o) AFP The protesters held flaming torches and candles during the marches In Kolkata, women marched resolutely, holding placards of protest, their faces illuminated by the glow of mobile phones, candlelight and flaming torches. Some carried India's flags. They were joined by men, both young and elderly. During the marches and at many gatherings near a university, theatre hall and bus terminus, they stood united, holding hands as the humid air echoed with loud and powerful chants of “we want justice”. Protesters blew conch shells - the sound is considered auspicious. Kolkata night protest: "Today I witnessed history" At the stroke of midnight, as India completed 77 years of Independence, the soundscape of protest changed. The air filled with a spontaneous chorus of the national anthem. Then it began raining, but the protesters walked in the rain, or holding umbrellas over their head. “We have never seen anything like this before in the city, such a huge gathering of women marching at night,” a reporter belonging to a news network said. It was a night of barely concealed rage and frustration. A woman, who joined the march well after midnight with her 13-year-old daughter said: “Let her see whether a mass protest can set things right. Let her become aware of her rights”. “Women have no respect!” said another. “Our worth is less than cows and goats." "When do we get our independence? How long do we have to wait to work without fear? Another 50 years?” asked a student. Reuters Smaller midnight protests were held in a number of other Indian cities like Mumbai and Delhi Sanchari Mukherjee, editor of a digital magazine, said she marched with thousands of others from a bus terminus in Jadavpur, undeterred by the rain. She met "people of all ages, from all classes, the well-to-do, the middle class and the poor". "I saw an elderly couple, the husband helping the woman to walk,” she said. "One family brought their little girl along, perhaps so the memory of this event would be etched in her mind - how her parents stood up against injustice, and how she, too, can protest one day." Ms Mukherjee said the entire city seemed awake as the marchers passed by illuminated homes, with people peering out of windows and crowding verandahs to watch. “They may not have participated but they were with us in spirit," she said. Jeet Sengupta Young protesters shouted slogans against workplace harassment "'We want justice' had become the anthem of the march, and it didn’t feel like just a slogan," Ms Mukherjee said. "It felt like every young woman was deeply hurt and determined, frustrated that they still face these issues in 2024." Ms Mukherjee added that she had to walk a few miles to join the march because the streets were gridlocked late at night. "I was instantly swept up in a sea of people heading to the protest site. There was no excitement, just a stoic determination to create an event which would become a symbol for the times to come." The protests have been fuelled by anger over local authorities’ handling of the young trainee doctor's rape and murder. Police later arrested a hospital volunteer worker in connection with what they said was a case of rape and murder. But there have been accusations of cover-up and negligence. The case has since been transferred from local police to the federal Central Bureau of Investigation. Reuters A woman holds a placard as she attends a candlelight vigil held outside Jadavpur University campus in Kolkata Despite scant resources, Kolkata’s Reclaim the Night march appeared to have been meticulously organised. In an advisory, organisers welcomed women and people from marginalised sexual and gender identities to the march. “Men are welcome as allies and observers,” the advisory added. They also emphasised that politicians were not welcome and requested that no party flags be brought to the protest. It was not the first time that a Reclaim the Night march has been staged in India. Inspired by similar marches elsewhere in the world by women to assert their rights to walk in public areas without fear, a march was held in 1978 in Bombay (now Mumbai) in protest against the rape of a woman on the street. Blank Noise, a community-based art project and activist collective, has organised several midnight walks in Delhi to encourage women to assert their right to walk freely at night. But in terms of scale, the Kolkata march, echoed by smaller ones across other cities, stands as the largest yet. "We seized the night. We've never seen anything like this in the city. This is unprecedented. I hope it wakes up the authorities," said Chaitali Sen, a protester.

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At the stroke of midnight, thousands of women holding flaming torches and blowing conch shells began to march through dark streets across the state of West Bengal. The processions in the early hours of the morning on Thursday 15 August, India’s Independence Day, were part of several days of protest against the brutal rape and murder of a junior doctor inside a hospital in the state capital, Kolkata, last week. The women marched to chants of “Reclaim the night”, a reference to the fact that the unnamed 31-year-old doctor was attacked at night on Friday while taking a break from a long shift at the government RG Kar hospital. The call for women to come out emerged from the anger expressed on social media, and quickly created the largest protest movement the state has seen for a long time. The anger on the streets was about the doctor’s horrific ordeal, but it was also about the daily struggle Indian women face to live freely. Organisers said they chose Independence Day to ask: when will women gain their independence? As the marchers made their way past homes, gated communities and apartment blocks, many inside rushed out to join the throng, undeterred by the rain. The chants were about justice, safety and respect. Anupama Chakraborty came out with her two granddaughters, aged 11 and 13. “This has rocked the country. The girl who was brutalised was an on-duty doctor. If the government cannot ensure the safety of women at a government-run institution, what hope is there?” she [told the Telegraph](https://www.telegraphindia.com/west-bengal/rg-kar-rape-murder-calcuttas-streets-usher-in-i-day-with-anthem-sung-in-never-before-chorus-for-justice/cid/2041054). [](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/aug/15/indian-women-march-reclaim-the-night-doctor-rape-murder-protests-womens-safety#img-1) Indian doctors in government hospitals across several states halted elective services “indefinitely” on 12 August, to protest the rape and murder of a young medic. Photograph: Idrees Mohammed/AFP/Getty Images On Monday, thousands of doctors halted most services by going on strike, severely disrupting patient services across India. They are demanding justice for the victim and better security at hospitals, such as stricter controls over who enters, more CCTV cameras and more guards. The doctor who was killed had been watching the Olympics with colleagues, had dinner and chatted to her parents before going into a seminar room to rest. The police investigation revealed that the 33-year-old man arrested for the crime was able to access every part of the hospital even though he appeared to be an unofficial tout helping patients to get admission faster in return for money. The Federation of Resident Doctors’ Association union, which called the strike, had called it off after a meeting on Wednesday with the federal health minister, Jagat Prakash Nadda, but many doctors continued to strike. Distrust with the police investigation has been mounting, after the hospital initially told the parents that their daughter had committed suicide. “What’s clear from this is that the hospital staff, along with police, wanted to cover up the real culprits,” Nazrul Islam, the former director-general of police in West Bengal, told the NDTV news channel. Protesters were also incensed that although the hospital’s principal, Dr Sandip Ghosh, resigned after the incident, he was reinstated as principal of another hospital 24 hours later. Responding to petitions for the case to be investigated outside the state, the Kolkata high court raised concerns about destruction of evidence and handed over the case to the federal crimes agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation. The young doctor’s death has struck a chord with the public, highlighting yet again the vulnerability of Indian women to violence. The shock has been heightened by the fact that she was not out late in the dark on her own but was at her place of work, filled with light and people. [](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/aug/15/indian-women-march-reclaim-the-night-doctor-rape-murder-protests-womens-safety#img-2) Doctors are demanding justice for the victim, as well as better security at hospitals, such as more CCTV cameras and more guards. Photograph: Idrees Mohammed/AFP/Getty Images In 2022, an [average of 86 rapes](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/indian-doctors-stage-nationwide-strike-trainee-medic-raped-killed-rcna166517) were reported in India every day. Ever since the savage gang-rape and death of a young woman in 2012 on a bus in New Delhi, Indians have wearied of an all-too-familiar cycle: rape, outrage, promises of change, return to “normal”. This time, neither the women and child development minister, Annapurna Devi, nor the chair of the National Commission of Women, Rekha Sharma, made a statement. Ranjana Kumari, the director of the Centre for Social Research, said: “It makes my blood boil when I see this silence, when I read how he butchered her, this total neglect of safety at the hospital. Nothing, nothing has changed since 2012. The room where it happened didn’t even have a CCTV camera.” * _Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the UK, [Rape Crisis](https://rapecrisis.org.uk/) offers support on 0808 500 2222 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in [Scotland](https://www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk/), or 0800 0246 991 in [Northern Ireland](https://rapecrisisni.org.uk/). In the US, [Rainn](https://www.rainn.org/) offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at [1800Respect](https://www.1800respect.org.au/) (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at [ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html](http://ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html)_

All hospital services in [India](https://www.theguardian.com/world/india) except for emergency care will shut down on Saturday as doctors escalate their protest over the rape and murder of a colleague by calling for a nationwide strike. A strike that doctors [started on Monday](https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/12/doctors-strike-in-india-after-and-at-state-run-hospital) was more limited, affecting only government hospitals and elective surgeries. The one on Saturday, called by the Indian Medical Association, will cause massive disruption for 24 hours. All outpatient services and treatment in government and private hospitals will be cancelled. Dr Johnrose Jayalal, the president of the association, said public anger was so high that the association felt compelled to intensify the strike – thought to be the biggest in a decade – to force the government to act. “Look, 50% of doctors are women, 90% of nursing staff are women. We want the government to take responsibility for ensuring their safety by declaring hospitals as protection zones \[with security measures\], just like airports and the courts,” he said. Jayalal added that doctors were deeply concerned over the safety of female doctors and rising levels of violence generally against all doctors by patients’ families. There have been cases of doctors being beaten up when a patient has died. A 31-year-old doctor was raped and murdered last week in a seminar room at RG Kar hospital in Kolkata, West Bengal, when she went to rest at night during a long shift. A man who worked informally at the hospital has been arrested and charged with the crime. Just as the strike is about the Kolkata murder but also encompasses a wider demand for safety for all doctors, so, too, are the protests sweeping West Bengal and other towns an outcry about women’s safety across India. As one protester put it, “this is both about the Kolkata doctor who was brutalised and every woman who has faced sexual violence or harassment in the country”.  Thousands of Indian women protest after junior doctor’s rape and murder – video Adding to the anger, it was reported on Thursday that on 8 August police in Uttarakhand discovered the body of a young nurse who had been raped and murdered nine days earlier while walking home from work. The sense of outrage among women in India about the Kolkata murder has been compounded by the insensitive response of prominent people, suggesting little has changed since the 2012 gang-rape of a student in a moving bus in Delhi that shook the country. The RG Kar medical college principal, Dr Sandip Ghosh, far from expressing sorrow over the doctor’s death, asked why she had been resting in the seminar room alone at night. After resigning, he was appointed to a post in another medical college. Politicians began a blame game. When the West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, was accused by rival parties of laxity on women’s safety, she asked: “What about sexual violence in your state?”

Getty Images Several doctors' associations are set to hold protests over the weekend Protests have intensified in India after a mob vandalised a hospital where a [female trainee doctor was raped and murdered](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c93pqq9r5n4o) in West Bengal state. The hospital was attacked on Wednesday during the massive [Reclaim the Night march held](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crmwj4z1xpko) in Kolkata city to protest against the brutal crime. Smaller protests were also held in many other Indian cities like Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune. The Indian Medical Association (IMA) - the country's largest grouping of doctors - has announced a nationwide strike of non-emergency services on Saturday. Doctor's associations in other cities and political parties in West Bengal have also planned marches on Friday and over the weekend to protest against the attack. Tens of thousands of women across the state participated in the Reclaim the Night march on Wednesday night to demand "independence to live in freedom and without fear". Though the protests were largely peaceful, clashes erupted between the police and a small group of unidentified men who barged into the RG Kar Hospital - the site of the crime - and ransacked its emergency ward. Videos circulated online showed the men smashing beds and equipment with sticks. * [Indian women lead night protests after doctor's rape and murder](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crmwj4z1xpko) Protesters told the BBC that some doctors and hospital staff were injured in the attack. Some police vehicles were also damaged in the chaos and tear gas had to be used to disperse the crowd. The Kolkata police [have arrested 19 people](https://x.com/KolkataPolice/status/1824275047512441316) in connection with the incident so far. On Thursday, the [IMA condemned the attack](https://x.com/IMAIndiaOrg/status/1824131652043542659/photo/1), calling it "hooliganism unleashed on protesting students" and announced the withdrawal of non-emergency services for 24 hours starting at 06:00 local time \[00:30 GMT\] on Saturday. "Doctors, especially women, are vulnerable to violence because of the nature of the profession. It is for the authorities to provide for the safety of doctors inside hospitals and campuses," the IMA said in a statement. "The IMA requires the sympathy of the nation with the just cause of its doctors." The Federation of Resident Doctors' Association (Forda) - another top doctors' association - has also resumed its strike after calling it off on Tuesday. The protest was called off after federal Health Minister JP Nadda assured its members that their demands - including a federal law to curb attacks on doctors - would be met. The incident has also sparked a political blame game in West Bengal, with the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accusing the governing Trinamool Congress Party (TMC) of orchestrating the attack. The TMC has refuted the allegation and has blamed "political outsiders" for stoking the violence. The rape of the 31-year-old female trainee doctor has shocked the country. Her half-naked body bearing extensive injuries was discovered in a seminar hall last week. A hospital volunteer who worked at the hospital has been arrested in connection with the crime. Since then, two more incidents of rape have made headlines in India. In the northern state of Uttarakhand, a nurse was allegedly raped and killed while returning home from work. She had gone missing at the end of July and her body was found last week. Police have arrested [a man from the western state of Rajasthan](https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/dehradun/man-28-arrested-for-rape-and-murder-of-missing-nurse/articleshow/112536745.cms) in connection with the crime. Meanwhile, six people have been arrested in the northern state of Bihar for the alleged gang-rape and murder of a six-year-old Dalit girl. Her mutilated body was found near a pond in a village in Muzaffarpur district on Tuesday morning.

Hospitals and clinics across [India](https://www.theguardian.com/world/india) have begun turning away patients except for emergency cases as medical professionals started a 24-hour shutdown in protest against the rape and murder of a doctor in the eastern city of Kolkata. More than 1 million doctors were expected to join Saturday’s strike, paralysing medical services across the world’s most populous nation. Hospitals said faculty staff from medical colleges had been pressed into service for emergency cases. The strike, which began at 6am (0030 GMT), cut off access to elective medical procedures and outpatient consultations, according to a statement by the Indian Medical Association (IMA). Casualty departments at hospitals, which deal with emergencies, will continue to be staffed. A 31-year-old trainee doctor was [raped and murdered last week](https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/12/doctors-strike-in-india-after-and-at-state-run-hospital) inside a medical college in Kolkata where she worked, triggering nationwide protests among doctors and drawing parallels to the [notorious gang-rape and murder](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/10/delhi-gang-rape-india-women) of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in New Delhi in 2012. Outside the RG Kar Medical College, where the crime took place, a heavy police presence was seen on Saturday while the hospital premises were deserted, according to the ANI news agency. Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal, which includes Kolkata, has backed the protests across the state, demanding the investigation be fast-tracked and the guilty punished in the strongest way possible. A large number of private clinics and diagnostic centres remained closed in Kolkata on Saturday. [](https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/17/hospitals-in-india-hit-as-doctors-begin-nationwide-strike-over-trainees-and#img-1) Bharatiya Janata party supporters in Kolkata demonstrate on Friday against the doctor’s rape and murder. Photograph: Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images Dr Sandip Saha, a private paediatrician in the city, told Reuters that he would not attend to patients except in emergencies. In Odisha state, patients were queueing up and senior doctors were trying to manage the rush, said Dr Prabhas Ranjan Tripathy, additional medical superintendent of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in the city of Bhubaneswar. “Resident doctors are on full strike, and because of that, the pressure is mounting on all faculty members, which means senior doctors,” he said. Patients queued up at hospitals, some unaware that the action would not allow them to get medical attention. “I have spent 500 rupees on travel to come here. I have paralysis and a burning sensation in my feet, head and other parts of my body,” a patient at SCB Medical College hospital at Cuttack in Odisha told a local television channel. “We were not aware of the strike. What can we do? We have to return home.” Anger at the failure of tough laws to deter a rising tide of violence against women has fuelled protests by doctors and women’s groups. “Women form the majority of our profession in this country,” the IMA president, RV Asokan, told Reuters on Friday. “Time and again, we have asked for safety for them.” A strike that doctors [began on Monday](https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/12/doctors-strike-in-india-after-and-at-state-run-hospital) was more limited, affecting only government hospitals and elective surgeries. Thousands of people marched through various Indian cities on Friday to protest over the trainee doctor’s case, demanding justice and better security at medical campuses and hospitals. Demonstrators held signs calling for accountability for the rape and killing as they gathered near parliament in New Delhi. In Kolkata, protesting doctors chanted “We want justice” and waved signs that read “No safety, no service!”. Similar protests were held in other Indian cities such as Mumbai and Hyderabad. Political parties, Bollywood actors and other high-profile celebrities have voiced shock at the crime and called for stricter punishments for the perpetrators. The protests, which have generally been peaceful, began on 9 August when police discovered the trainee doctor’s bloodied body at the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital’s seminar hall in Kolkata. She had gone there to rest at night during a long shift. A police volunteer, designated to help police officers and their families who needed to be admitted to the hospital, has been arrested and charged with the crime. Adding to anger, it was reported on Thursday that on 8 August police in Uttarakhand discovered the body of a young nurse who had been raped and murdered nine days earlier while walking home from work. Sexual violence against women is a widespread problem in India. In 2022, police recorded 31,516 reports of rape – a 20% increase from 2021, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. _Guardian staff and Associated Press contributed to this report_

Reuters Protests demanding justice for the murdered woman and greater protection for women in general have been held across India Doctors in India have begun a national strike, escalating the protest against the rape and murder of a female colleague in the West Bengal city of Kolkata. The Indian Medical Association (IMA), the country's largest grouping of doctors, said all non-essential hospital services would be shut down across the country on Saturday. The IMA described last week's killing as a "crime of barbaric scale due to the lack of safe spaces for women" and asked for the country's support in its "struggle for justice". Protests against the attack and calling for the better protection of women have intensified in recent days after a mob vandalised the hospital where it happened. In a statement, the IMA said emergency and casualty services would continue to run and that the strike would last for 24 hours. The association's president, R. V. Asokan, told the BBC doctors have been suffering and protesting against violence for years, but that this incident was "qualitatively different". If such a crime can happen in a medical college in a major city, it shows "everywhere doctors are unsafe", he said. Doctors at some government hospitals announced earlier this week that they were indefinitely halting elective procedures. The IMA also issued a list of demands including the strengthening of the law to better protect medical staff against violence, increasing the level of security at hospitals and the creation of safe spaces for rest. It called for a "meticulous and professional investigation" into the killing and the prosecution of those involved in vandalising, as well as compensation for the woman's family. The rape of the 31-year-old female trainee doctor has shocked the country. Her half-naked body bearing extensive injuries was discovered in a seminar hall at R G Kar Medical College last week after she was reported to have gone there to rest during her shift. A volunteer who worked at the hospital has been arrested in connection with the crime. The case has been transferred from local police to India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) following criticism at the lack of progress. More incidents of rape have made headlines in India since the woman's death and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that "monstrous behaviour against women should be severely and quickly punished". EPA Demonstrators are also calling for greater security at hospital and for better laws to protect medical staff The woman's rape and killing has sparked a political blame game in West Bengal, with the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accusing the governing Trinamool Congress Party (TMC) of orchestrating the attack. The TMC has refuted the allegation and has blamed "political outsiders" for stoking the violence. Tens of thousands of women across West Bengal participated in the Reclaim the Night march on Wednesday night to demand "independence to live in freedom and without fear". Though the protests were largely peaceful, clashes erupted between the police and a small group of unidentified men who barged into the RG Kar Hospital - the site of the crime - and ransacked its emergency ward. At least 25 people have been arrested in connection with the incident so far. Protests have also been held in many other Indian cities like Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune. "It feels like hope is being reignited," one demonstrator, Sumita Datta, told the AFP news agency as thousands of people marched through the streets of Kolkata on Friday.

On Monday, Indians celebrated the Hindu festival of Raksha Bandhan_,_ marking the bond between brother and sister. Sisters tie a “rakhi”, or bracelet, around the wrists of their brothers as a symbol of love for which the brothers in turn pledge to protect them from harm. This year, the rakhi tradition angered Dr Sumita Banerjee, a third-year student at Lady Hardinge Medical College in the Indian capital, Delhi, because of the timing – India is still shaken by the [rape and murder of a 31-year-old doctor](https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/12/doctors-strike-in-india-after-and-at-state-run-hospital) on 9 August at a hospital in Kolkata. “What hypocrisy,” said Banerjee. “These men pledge to protect their sisters but rape women. Can we stop these brother-sister rituals and just strive for a day when Indian men respect not only their sisters but _all_ women.” The discovery of the doctor’s brutalised body in a seminar room at RG Kar hospital, where she had gone to take a break, has outraged Indians. Doctors across the country have held protests and refused to see non-emergency patients since the crime. For female doctors, the crime has spawned a new fear. Their brains were already wired to make careful decisions about what to wear depending on where they were going and to avoid being out late alone. But at work, many felt they could let their guard down. “I’d stride into hospital at 2am or 3am and think nothing of it. My white coat was like a circle of protection around me. Now that sense of safety has gone,” said Dr Rooma Sinha, a gynaecologist at Apollo hospital in Hyderabad. Her colleague at the Apollo branch in Bangalore, Dr Preeti Shetty, also a gynaecologist, said female doctors were deeply disturbed by the crime. “We have all done night shifts, responded to calls at every hour of the day, and gone off for deliveries at night as totally routine things. Totally routine for us as doctors. To think that such a hideous thing could happen during our normal routine is very unsettling for all of us,” said Shetty.  'Where are we safe?': medical professionals strike in India over trainee’s rape and murder – video Apollo is a private hospital where extensive security measures are in place. Shetty has a duty doctor’s room next to the labour ward where she can take a break and where only authorised staff can enter. Every floor has security guards and CCTV cameras are all over. For night shifts, she uses a hospital car. The Kolkata hospital is a government facility with far fewer safety measures. The man who has been arrested, Sanjoy Roy, a civic volunteer with the police who helped patients with admissions, was able to access any part of the hospital. In response to the striking doctors, the government on Tuesday announced a 25% increase in security personnel at all government hospitals, along with marshals to handle extreme situations. Separately, India’s supreme court ordered the creation of a national taskforce of doctors to make recommendations on safety at their workplace. Shetty worries about medical students who will be entering hospitals as resident doctors. “They have worked so hard to pass competitive exams. Their parents have made sacrifices to pay for their education. And now parents have a new fear to worry about,” she said. More female doctors than ever are entering the workplace. In fact, so many girls are choosing medicine that they form half of the cohort in most medical colleges and in some the figure is 60%. A senior resident at Safdarjung hospital in Delhi, who did not want to be named, said she felt nervous about going back to night shifts once the strike was over. Taking part in a protest on Sunday with a placard saying, “No safety, no duty”, she looked around her and said: “It’s weird but being out in the open on the street actually feels safer than a seminar room in a hospital after what happened to her.” Dr Subashini Venkatesh, a general physician with Apollo in Chennai, has already started behaving differently with her staff. “I have an intern working with me and I’m asking: ‘Where have you parked your car, is it well-lit and let me know when you have reached your room.’ This is totally new,” she said. Sinha said she appreciated the public outrage over a doctor being murdered inside a hospital but said no distinctions should be made. “Yes, I know doctors serve the public but so do other women – women working nights in call centres or as software engineers. Women should feel safe in _all_ workplaces,” she said. The ongoing protests have given the parents of the dead doctor some solace. “My daughter is gone but millions of sons and daughters are now with me. This has given me strength,” the father told reporters. The investigation is being handled by India’s federal crimes agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation, which took over from the Kolkata police after the parents expressed doubts about its objectivity.

The rape and killing of a 31-year-old woman medical resident has touched off protests across India as the country grapples with inadequate protections for women and increasing [reports of gender-based violence](https://apnews.com/article/india-doctor-rape-protests-what-to-know-80596fc7aa0880133f56ace5d77240b2). The demonstrations began in Kolkata — the capital of the eastern Indian state of West Bengal — following the woman’s rape and killing, which took place on August 9 at a medical school. They’ve since spread to [other states, as well as the country’s capital, New Delhi](https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indian-medics-refuse-end-protests-over-doctors-rape-murder-2024-08-19/). The death of the trainee is just the latest of several [high-profile recent incidents of gender-based violence](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/7/india-supreme-court-to-monitor-investigations-into-manipur-sexual-violence?traffic_source=KeepReading) in India, and it comes at a time when sexual violence appears to be on the rise: [According to the National Crime Records Bureau](https://apnews.com/article/india-doctor-rape-protests-what-to-know-80596fc7aa0880133f56ace5d77240b2), there was a 20 percent increase in reported rapes in 2022 compared to 2021. The Indian government implemented stricter laws against sexual- and gender-based violence, as well as some [national strategies to address it](https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/india-lacks-national-policy-strengthen-health-response-gender-based-violence), following international outcry over the 2012 case of a young woman who was gang raped and killed on a bus. But as the current tragedy [and other high-profile cases](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/7/india-supreme-court-to-monitor-investigations-into-manipur-sexual-violence?traffic_source=KeepReading) suggest, those laws have not ended India’s systemic problems with gender-based violence, and now, many of the protesters say they’ve had enough. As part of the protests, [thousands of doctors](https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indian-medics-refuse-end-protests-over-doctors-rape-murder-2024-08-19/) (by some estimates, [hundreds of thousands of doctors](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/08/13/india/kolkata-doctor-strike-trainee-rape-murder-intl-hnk)) have left their posts. On Saturday, doctors across the country — [led primarily by women](https://apnews.com/article/india-doctor-rape-protests-what-to-know-80596fc7aa0880133f56ace5d77240b2) — held a 24-hour strike. Over the past few days, some physicians, such as [a group of doctors in New Delhi,](https://apnews.com/article/india-doctor-rape-protests-d3f23d145891ec3031617647a8cc0166) have attempted to set up limited free care as part of their demonstrations, and most have refused to see non-emergency patients. Government officials have demanded that the protesting doctors return to work as usual; they have refused until their demands are met. Political leaders have called for justice. In an address on August 15 — India’s independence day — Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, without mentioning the Kolkata rape and death, that everyone in the country must “seriously think about the kind of atrocities which are taking place against our mothers, sisters, daughters” and that “crime against women should be investigated more urgently.” As of now, the investigation into the rape and death continues, as do renewed calls for [India to strengthen legal protections](https://apnews.com/article/india-doctor-rape-protests-d3f23d145891ec3031617647a8cc0166) for medical professionals generally and women specifically. There are still a number of unknowns about the woman at the heart of the protests, who, per Indian law, has not been publicly named. However, we do know she worked at Kolkata’s government-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. She reportedly fell asleep in a seminar room at the hospital, after a long shift as a trainee physician. The following morning, on August 9, her colleagues found her body. An autopsy report showed signs of sexual violence. A [volunteer with the police](https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/kolkata-doctor-death-who-is-sanjay-roy-civic-volunteer-arrested-in-rg-kar-hospital-rape-murder-case/articleshow/112440685.cms), identified as Sanjay Roy, has been arrested and charged with her murder. The woman’s parents [insist that more people were involved](https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/kolkata/kolkata-doctors-rape-murder-colleagues-involved-in-crime-parents-tell-cbi/article68532505.ece). [Federal officials have taken](https://apnews.com/article/india-doctor-rape-protests-d3f23d145891ec3031617647a8cc0166) over the investigation of the case. As the inquiry continues, doctors are protesting for safer conditions at their hospitals, including a law that would remove bail for those accused of attacking doctors. They are also demanding a swift resolution to the case and have prompted an examination of larger systemic issues with Indian gender-based violence, including stigma around sexual assault in the country and mistrust of local police, [according to](https://apnews.com/article/india-doctor-rape-protests-what-to-know-80596fc7aa0880133f56ace5d77240b2) the Associated Press. Religious and ethnic minorities have been subject to gender-based and sexual violence by the state. Perhaps one of the most shocking historical cases is the [mass rape perpetrated by the Indian military in Kashmir in 1991](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41268906). More recently, in Jammu, a part of Kashmir that is a site of government repression and popular uprising, [an 8-year-old girl](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-43722714) was kidnapped, held in a Hindu temple, tortured, raped, and murdered by a former government officer and police co-conspirators in 2017. Police said the crime was part of an effort [to push the nomadic Muslim community to which the girl belonged out of the area](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/six-men-convicted-in-rape-of-8-year-old-girl-that-shocked-india/2019/06/10/cde7b17c-8b5f-11e9-b162-8f6f41ec3c04_story.html). Infamously, Modi’s government [overturned the sentences of 11 men convicted of raping a Muslim woman in the 2002 Gujarat riots](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/9/why-did-indias-supreme-court-send-bilkis-banos-rapists-back-to-jail), though they were eventually sent back to jail. Modi was at the time chief minister of Gujarat, and around 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in the riots. And cases like the woman’s proliferate at the community level as well; in the wake of her case, [three doctors were accused of raping a nurse](https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/uttar-pradesh/dalit-nurse-raped-by-doctor-in-up-hospital-3-held/article68542561.ece) in northern India. “There’s so much gender-based violence” in India, Ather Zia, an anthropology professor at Northern Colorado University, told Vox. She added that’s by no means exclusive to India, though. “That’s the entire world.” _This story originally appeared in_ [**_Today, Explained_**](https://www.vox.com/today-explained-newsletter)_, Vox’s flagship daily newsletter._ [**_Sign up here for future editions_**](https://www.vox.com/pages/today-explained-newsletter-signup)_._ You’ve read 1 article in the last month Here at Vox, we believe in helping everyone understand our complicated world, so that we can all help to shape it. Our mission is to create clear, accessible journalism to empower understanding and action. 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The father of the trainee doctor murdered during a rest break at a Kolkata hospital has spoken of his daughter’s love of medicine and the way her family had worked to support her vocation. “We are a poor family and we raised her with a lot of hardship. She worked extremely hard to become a doctor. All she did was study, study, study,” he told the Guardian by telephone. “All our dreams have been shattered in one night. We sent her to work and the hospital gave us her body. It’s all finished for us. “My daughter isn’t coming back. I’m never going to hear her voice or laugh. All I can do now is concentrate on getting her justice,” he said. The rape and murder of the doctor at RG Kar hospital in Kolkata on 9 August, and subsequent handling of the case by the authorities, has led to [protests and strikes by doctors](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/aug/15/indian-women-march-reclaim-the-night-doctor-rape-murder-protests-womens-safety) across India. Her father, who cannot be named under an Indian law that protects the identity of the dead woman, said a career in medicine was all his only child had ever wanted. The 31-year-old had beaten the odds to qualify for one of approximately 107,000 places in India’s medical colleges, which more than a million aspiring doctors compete for every year. She won a place at College of Medicine & JNM hospital in Kalyani in her home state of West Bengal. Her parents financed her dream with the precarious income her father earned as a tailor. Remembering the day she confided in him she wanted to become a doctor, his voice broke. “She said: ‘Papa, it’s a good thing to become a doctor and help others. What do you think?’ I said: ‘OK, do it. We’ll help you.’ And look what happened,” he said. [](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/aug/20/india-trainee-doctor-rape-murder-kolkata-hospital-protests-family-justice#img-2) A protest at the rape-murder of the young doctor in Kolkata. The crime sparked demonstrations and doctors’ strikes across several states in India. Photograph: Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Her ambition drove him to expand his tailoring business and the family’s finances improved to the point where, when his daughter fretted about safety on the hour-long bus ride between the hospital and their home in a crowded Kolkata suburb, he was able to borrow the money to buy her a car. “At first, she told me to wait, she said we couldn’t manage the EMIs \[monthly instalments\] and she didn’t want to overburden us. But then she found the bus ride so tiring after a long shift that she agreed to the car,” said the father. Although they remained in the same lower middle-class suburb where she grew up, and where everyone respected her as a local girl made good, her parents had recently renovated the house. The brass nameplate bore her name, not theirs, proudly prefixed by “Dr”. The sense of disbelief in the neighbourhood has not faded since the news spread from house to house that “their” doctor’s bright day was done. The location of this attack – in the hospital where the victim worked, which she and her family assumed was safe – and her public service as a doctor working a 36-hour shift have added to the public outrage over the crime. The father said: “Like all parents, we worried about her safety but only while she was travelling. The moment she reached the hospital, we relaxed. She was safe. It’s like when we used to drop her off at school – once she was inside the gate, you feel she is safe,” he said. In a post on X, the head of the Indian Medical Association, Dr RV Asokan, expressed anguish at the murder, saying “we failed her in life but did not fail her in death” – a reference to the protests, outcry and doctors’ strikes that have rocked the country since her body was discovered. Her colleagues and neighbours describe a dedicated young doctor who wanted to pay off her parents’ debts and give them a comfortable life after their sacrifices to help her become a doctor. One of her former teachers, Arnab Biswas, said that unlike many young people who chose medicine for its earning potential, she was “old school”, treating it as a vocation. Having witnessed Covid-19 patients gasping for breath, she selected respiratory medicine when it came to choosing a medical specialism. Her parents are broken. “She was my only child. We worked hard to make her a doctor … I will never be happy again,” a neighbour said the mother told her. Neighbours, who consulted her over every ailment and were proud of her achievements, recall her feeding stray animals and gardening when she had the time. They are yearning to help the family in some way. “The girl has gone now,” said one neighbour. “But we’ll stand by her parents so they don’t feel alone.”

With a rape occurring every 16 minutes, violence is one of the biggest deterrents to women working in India. On the eve of India’s independence day, 14 August, tens of thousands of women took to the streets across the eastern Indian state of West Bengal in a “[reclaim the night](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/aug/15/indian-women-march-reclaim-the-night-doctor-rape-murder-protests-womens-safety)” march, after the brutal rape and murder of a trainee doctor in Kolkata. But we have been here before – too many times. Most notably in 2012, when we protested at the murder of a young paramedic in Delhi. [Jyoti Singh](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/03/five-years-after-gang-murder-jyoti-singh-how-has-delhi-changed) was raped in a moving bus by several men and left to die on the streets. The incident brought hundreds of thousands of women out in protest, demanding a safer environment. They arm-twisted the central government into bolstering laws , including making [stalking a punishable offence](https://www.indiacode.nic.in/show-data?abv=null&statehandle=null&actid=AC_CEN_5_23_00037_186045_1523266765688&orderno=398&orgactid=AC_CEN_5_23_00037_186045_1523266765688). It was in many ways a watershed moment, or so we thought. But the statistics have remained stark, like the rape every 16 minutes [reported in 2022](https://www.oneindia.com/india/a-rape-every-16-minutes-can-india-ever-be-safe-for-women-insights-from-the-latest-ncrb-report-3909029.html). And here we are again – another watershed moment? Has anything changed since 2012? I covered the protests in Delhi extensively for Time magazine, as a reporter but also a woman who works under the ever-present fear of violence, especially in public spaces. The collective emotions at these marches were a heady mix of fear, anxiety and disappointment. In the intervening years, many other incidents have tested our patience. There have been some protests and more engagement with the government on women’s safety – and yet here we are again. Women are still angry, scared, anxious and disappointed. We are still asking for justice. We are still protesting against this culture of violence that so limits our lives. Is it this fear that is keeping Indian women away from formal work? I have felt fear throughout my career – traversing mostly male-dominated spaces; from streets to fields to shops to offices. It stalked me in the pornographic jokes that my male colleagues felt entitled to share in the newsroom to sexual advances from my line manager. Of course, I complained. Of course, nothing was done. Of course, I was the one who had to resign. > If India is serious about achieving 8% GDP growth, it will have to raise female labour force participation to 43.4% by 2030 Did this affect my ability to work to my full potential? Of course. Not only was no action taken on my complaint, no other media houses would employ someone who became a whistleblower on the misogynistic nature of Indian newsrooms. But I had just come back from a stint at the BBC World Service in the UK and I saw things differently. I had unbridled hope for my life in India as a journalist and as a woman. I was ready to stand alone and fight it out, but I was young and foolish. My perspective had changed; the country’s had not. I could have dropped out of the workforce at any time during this period, but I didn’t. Was I harassed again? Every time I went back to work in a newsroom. Which is why my career has more freelance stints than full-time roles. I survived not because of any institutional measures to provide me with a safe environment but because of personal grit, determination and –undoubtedly – social privilege and good luck. But every trip I have undertaken, every late night at work, has come with a deep sense of unease and vulnerability. This constant fight-or-flight instinct is exhausting and women often choose to stay at home rather than go through the rigmarole of finding a job with security and safety. Is it any wonder that India’s female workforce participation rate is so alarmingly low? As I discussed in my book Lies Our Mothers Told Us, the gender-blind infrastructure is a major factor keeping women out of the formal labour force. Today India is bringing more and more girls to school and it has the highest numbers of women graduating in Stem subjects in the world, yet the transition from education to employment remains dismal. [As of 2023](https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/persisting-gender-gap-in-stem-jobs-2928872), women represent only 19% of scientists and 27% of the Stem workforce, a huge disparity in a field critical to innovation and progress. Women tend to opt for informal yet flexible home-based jobs where they have some control over their environment. At just [under 33% in 2023](https://www.statista.com/statistics/983020/female-labor-force-participation-rate-india/), women’s participation in the Indian workforce lags significantly behind the [global average of 47%](https://webapps.ilo.org/infostories/en-GB/Stories/Employment/barriers-women#:~:text=A%20global%20gap&text=The%20current%20global%20labour%20force,more%20than%2050%20percentage%20points.). If India is serious about achieving its ambitious target of 8% GDP growth, it will have to raise female labour force participation to 43.4% by 2030. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/aug/23/india-is-outraged-at-a-young-doctors-and-we-have-been-here-too-often#EmailSignup-skip-link-20) Sign up to Her Stage Hear directly from incredible women from around the world on the issues that matter most to them – from the climate crisis to the arts to sport **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion > Rebuild existing workplace structures and make them work for every gender The [Women @ Work 2024 report](https://www.deloitte.com/global/en/issues/work/content/women-at-work-global-outlook.html) by Deloitte revealed that 46% of Indian women worry about safety at work or on their commutes. [A report in 2021](https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/social-identity/is-it-safe-threat-of-sexual-violence-and-women-s-decision-to-work.html) that examined the role of safety in women’s decision to work found that “an additional crime per 1,000 women in a district reduces the expected probability of working by 6.3 percentage points among women in the 21-64 age group. As per the [2011 census](https://censusindia.gov.in/census.website/data/census-tables), roughly 50% of India’s 586 million women belong to this working-age category. This implies that for every additional crime per 1,000 women in a district, roughly 32 women are deterred from joining the workforce.” Public space and workplace culture in India are built around the needs of men. Women are set up for failure at every step. In Kolkata, the victim was having a nap, after an exhausting work shift. Government hospitals in India are often crowded and short-staffed so she had to sleep in a seminar room – why were there no proper rest areas for women working night shifts? This is not special treatment; the least a country can do is to make workplaces suitable for the different needs of both genders. Every time a woman is assaulted or murdered, the narrative still turns to what she was wearing, why she was out, who she was with. But women are not the problem. Rebuild existing workplace structures and make them work for every gender. India has a litany of laws aimed at protecting women: the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005; the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961; the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013; the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006. Laws that loudly proclaim India to be a society that cares about its women. Amendments have been enacted to strengthen the fight against sexual offences, and to impose harsher penalties, including death for the rape of a child under 12. There are other response mechanisms, too. There are safe-city projects, forensic labs, cybercrime portals, DNA analysis units – all in the name of making women safer. And yet here we are. The violence continues unabated. Reducing crimes against women is not just about laws and crisis centres – crucial as they are – it is about addressing the entrenched misogyny in a patriarchal society such as India. For social change, we need to invest in women’s organisations as they play a key role within communities. Efforts to get women back to work have focused on maternity and childcare benefits. These do need to be addressed, just like women’s burden of unpaid care. But if we do not address violence against women in public spaces, all those other efforts will remain ineffective. _Nilanjana Bhowmick is an independent journalist and feminist writer based in India_

 On August 9, the body of a 31-year-old doctor trainee was found at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata. The woman had been raped and murdered. The case has once again brought to the forefront the discussion of women’s safety in India — with special concerns voiced by women who are medical professionals. “My first reaction was that of absolute horror. I could feel the anger in my bones,” says Dr. Kamna Kakkar, a resident doctor from Delhi. “Hospitals are supposed to be places which are safe and revered like temples. When I don the white coat to save lives, I expect to be provided safety.” Her thoughts were echoed by the seven female doctors and nurses interviewed for this story — and are similar to points raised on two WhatsApp groups by over 200 medical professionals in India. Along with protests demanding better security measures for women, these medical professionals are speaking out about the lack of respect they are afforded in their workplace. They say they’re not safe at work nor do they have safe resting places when they do shift work. They’re also calling attention to sexual harassment from peers and patients alike. According to details made public by courts and police, the woman who was raped and murdered — she cannot be named by law — was found with extensive injuries in the seminar hall of the hospital, where she was resting at the end of a 36-hour shift late night shift. A police volunteer — a unpaid civilian recruited for minor policing duties — was detained in connection with the crime. ### India's Supreme Court speaks out The brutality of this case, as well as the increasing frequency of reports of sexual crimes against women in India — from 25,000 rape cases in 2012 to 31,000 a decade later — has sparked nationwide anger and condemnation. In response, the Indian Supreme Court, last Tuesday, announced it would hear the case surrounding the woman’s murder,and ordered a national task force to investigate workplace safety for doctors. The Supreme Court announcement came after more than a dozen protests by medical professions, and thousands of citizens across India. One of India’s largest unions representing doctors, the Indian Medical Association, is demanding increased security protocols — “no less than an airport” — for all hospitals. In a statement, they called for deployment of more security personnel and closed-circuit TV for surveillance. The infrastructure at most public hospitals isn’t built with regard to women’s safety, doctors told NPR. Women doctors typically don’t have specially-designated bathrooms or safe places to rest or sleep. “In one instance I know, a lady doctor was made to sleep inside the ward because no doctor's duty room was provided to her,” Dr. Kakkar said, On August 16, following the rape and murder in Kolkata, that association, which counts over 360,000 doctors as members, announced a nationwide strike to demand safer spaces for women medical professionals. Participating doctors refused services to non-emergency patients. While exact figures weren’t collated, the Supreme Court appealed for doctors to return to work, saying that their strike had denied medical care to Indians across the country. ### A history of gender violence Gender-based violence has been a long-standing issue in India. Nearly one in three women in India has reported experiencing some form of violence, according to a [national health survey](https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR375/FR375.pdf) conducted by the Indian Ministry of Health, sampling nearly 725,000 women across the country. New laws in the wake of a 2012 gang rape in Delhi have instituted stricter punishments for violence against women, including longer sentences and even the death penalty in cases of rape. Yet the number of confirmed cases of rape has risen from 337,922 in 2014 to 445,256 in 2022, the most recent year for which data is available. The enactment of more laws is not the solution says Karanjeet Kaur, a columnist for Indian daily _The Print._ [“](https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2024/08/26/g-s1-18366/target=_blank)In India, the problem has never been that the laws are not friendly toward women. The problem has always been the uneven application of, those laws,” Kaur says. "There's very little that Indian women can really hope for if especially if they are from historically disempowered, communities. This high-profile case also has brought attention to India’s low rates of employment of women. One reason is that they lack safety in their commute and in their workplaces. And yet the rape of a doctor in a hospital, was still shocking, Kaur says, even though a survey from 2015 reported that about three-quarters of doctors [reported experiencing violence](https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6206759/) in their workplace. Doctors, she says, “"are considered next to God,” while many Indians also identified with the challenges she faced in becoming a doctor, only "to have her life so callously and so brutally taken away from her." _Ruchi Kumar is a journalist who reports on conflict, politics, development and culture in India and Afghanistan. She tweets at @RuchiKumar_

AFP Police used water cannons to disperse protesters in Kolkata on Tuesday Police in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata have fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse thousands of protesters demanding justice for the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at a state-run hospital earlier this month. The discovery of the body of the 31-year-old sparked nationwide outrage over the crisis of violence against women. On Tuesday, thousands marched to a government building in Kolkata, demanding the resignation of West Bengal's Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee. A hospital volunteer has been arrested in connection with the crime, which has now been handed over to India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) after criticism of the local police's slow progress. India police use tear gas and water cannon to disperse protesters The protesters chanted slogans and clashed with police, who used batons to disperse the crowd. Namita Ghosh, a college student at the protest, told news agency AFP the crowd intended to "protest peacefully" before the baton charge. A senior police official, speaking anonymously, said at least 100 protesters were arrested for "creating violence". A series of protests have taken place since the killing on 9 August. The largest saw tens of thousands of women across West Bengal participating in the Reclaim the Night march on 14 August to demand "independence to live in freedom and without fear". But since then, some of the protests have escalated into chaotic political rallies, with police clashing with ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) demonstrators angry at the state government. The BJP, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi but an opposition party in West Bengal, has accused Ms Banerjee's government of fostering an unsafe environment for women, which they claim enabled crimes like the doctor's murder. Her half-naked body bearing extensive injuries was discovered in a seminar hall at RG Kar Medical College, where she had reportedly gone to rest during her shift. India's Supreme Court has said the incident had ["shocked the conscience of the nation"](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvge9r0vwvdo) and criticised authorities for their handling of the investigation. Ms Banerjee's government has announced a slew of measures for women's safety at workplaces, including designated retiring rooms and CCTV-monitored "safe zones" at state-run hospitals. More incidents of rape have made headlines in India since the woman's death and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that "monstrous behaviour against women should be severely and quickly punished".

Exhausted doctors resting in crowded on-call rooms with no locks, two to a single bed. Frustrated relatives of patients angrily challenging a physician’s diagnosis. Too few security guards to keep the peace. These are everyday realities in Indian government hospitals. Young doctors describe multiday shifts and harrowing working conditions in rooms and wards often lacking in safety and hygiene, where learning is frequently interrupted by the crushing load of urgent cases. Their plight has come to light in recent weeks after the rape and murder in Kolkata of a 31-year-old junior doctor who had been resting after a grueling 36-hour shift. Last month, the police arrested a man, considered a prime suspect in the killing, after he was caught on CCTV walking into the hospital late at night. The case has prompted nationwide protests, with doctors, students and human rights activists demanding justice for the victim, as well as better protection and [safer workplaces](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/22/world/asia/india-women-safety-rape.html) for doctors and women. Many doctors also went on strike. “People protested because we identified with the victim,” said Dr. Susmita Sengupta, who graduated in 2020 from M.G.M. Medical College & Hospital in Jamshedpur, a large city in the eastern state of Jharkhand, and worked there for a year before moving to private practice. Between the lack of security personnel and the challenges many female doctors face to be heard, “any residency in India becomes toxic,” Dr. Sengupta said. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F09%2F01%2Fworld%2Fasia%2Findia-doctors-safety.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F09%2F01%2Fworld%2Fasia%2Findia-doctors-safety.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F09%2F01%2Fworld%2Fasia%2Findia-doctors-safety.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F09%2F01%2Fworld%2Fasia%2Findia-doctors-safety.html).

Getty Images The Supreme Court is hearing petitions seeking to amend a law that says a man cannot be prosecuted for rape within marriage The Indian government has opposed petitions in the top court that seek criminalisation of marital rape, saying it would be "excessively harsh". The federal home ministry told the Supreme Court that "a man does not have a fundamental right" to force sex on his wife, but there were enough laws to protect married women against sexual violence. The top court is hearing petitions seeking to amend a British-era law that says a man cannot be prosecuted for rape within marriage. Violence within marriage is rampant in India - according to a recent government survey, one in 25 women have faced sexual violence from their husbands. Getty Images A recent government survey says one in 25 women have faced sexual violence from their husbands Marital rape is outlawed in more than 100 countries, including Britain which criminalised it in 1991. But India remains among the three dozen countries - along with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia - where the law remains on the statute books. A number of petitions have been filed in recent years calling for striking down Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, which has been in existence since 1860. The law mentions several "exemptions" - or situations in which sex is not rape - and one of them is "by a man with his own wife" if she is not a minor. Campaigners say such an argument is untenable in modern times and that forced sex is rape, regardless of who commits it. United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have also raised concerns about India's refusal to criminalise marital rape. But the Indian government, religious groups and men's rights activists have opposed any plans to amend the law saying consent for sex is "implied" in marriage and that a wife cannot retract it later. The courts have given contradictory judgements, sometimes allowing a husband to be tried for rape while at others dismissing the petition. The case came to the Supreme Court after the Delhi high court in 2022 delivered a split verdict. The top court began hearings in August. Getty Images India is among the three dozen countries where marital rape is still not outlawed The state's response in their 49-page affidavit submitted in the Supreme Court on Thursday has not come as a surprise in a country rooted in patriarchal traditions and where marriages are considered sacrosanct. The report says that marriage is a relationship of a "different class" and has an “entire ecosystem” of laws, rights and obligations. Criminalising marital rape "may seriously impact the conjugal relationship and may lead to serious disturbances in the institution of marriage”, it stated. The affidavit noted that in a marriage, there was a "continuing expectation to have reasonable sexual access from one's spouse" and while this did not entitle a husband to coerce his wife into having sex, including marital rape under anti-rape laws would be "excessively harsh" and "disproportionate". It added that there were existing laws that dealt with domestic violence, sexual harassment and assault that protected a married woman's rights. The home ministry also said that marriage was a social institution and the issue raised in the petitions was more social than legal and hence it should be left to the parliament to formulate policy.

Eric Adams, we recently learned, seems to have spent the bulk of his time as mayor of [New York](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/new-york) trying to wangle criminally cheap business class tickets from Turkish Airlines. But while Adams may have made history by becoming the first sitting mayor of New York to be indicted on federal corruption charges, the fact that he has a slightly wonky moral compass is old news. Even before being appointed mayor, there were questions about Adam’s truthfulness, including a long-running debate about whether the swagger-obsessed candidate lived in Brooklyn, as he insisted he did, or New Jersey. Still, let’s give the mayor his due, shall we? It would be unfair to say he’s spent the entirety of his time in high office trying to live the high life. Adams, who appointed New York City’s first “rat tsar” last year, has also spent a lot of time thinking about the city’s rodent problem. “I don’t think there’s been a mayor in history that says how much he hates rats,” he grandly proclaimed during New York City’s inaugural Rat Summit in September. “I dislike rats.” Adams added that he was confident New York could “look forward to a new paradigm in urban rat management”. Wheelie bins are part of that exciting new paradigm in urban rat management. There was much mirth on social media over the summer when it transpired that New York City had paid McKinsey over a million dollars to figure out whether it might be a good idea to put loose rubbish in a bin. (Or, in management consultant speech, “containerize” it.) Now the brainiacs in Adams’s orbit have come up with an exciting new paradigm shift: the city council recently greenlit pilot schemes to deploy ContraPest, a type of rodent birth control. The irony that New York is investing in rodent contraceptives at a time when women’s access to reproductive services across the US is under fire hasn’t gone unnoticed. Social media has been filled with wry observations along the lines of “it’s easier to get reproductive rights as a rodent in New York than it is for a woman to get reproductive rights in most of the country”. Because pedants never take a day off I will note that quip isn’t strictly true. At least for the moment it isn’t. But if Donald Trump wins the election and the extremists backing him have their way then it might very well be true that rats will soon have better access to birth control in the US than women. Over the past few years, rightwingers have started to speak more openly about the possibility of banning birth control. In 2022, for example, an Idaho Republican leader suggested he’d consider banning certain forms of birth control, including the morning-after pill. Around the same time the governor of Mississippi refused to rule out future contraception bans during an interview on NBC. This isn’t just all talk. Over the years the right has managed to undermine access to birth control in a number of alarming ways. In 2022, for example, an appeals court ruled that federally funded family planning centers in Texas must receive parental consent before prescribing birth control to teenagers. (Previously federal courts had found that the national title X program guaranteed minors the right to access birth control without parental involvement.) Then, this summer Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would have recognized a legal right to contraception. Perhaps most importantly, anti-abortion activists have also been doggedly trying to argue that certain birth control methods, such as Plan B and certain intrauterine devices (IUDs), are abortifacients because they may prevent the implantation of fertilized eggs. While it’s unlikely that we’ll see any sort of direct push to outlaw access to contraceptives, expect to see anti-abortion laws sneakily widen to restrict access to birth control. As advocates have noted, _Roe_ was not toppled in a day–and access to contraceptives won’t be overturned imminently. But anti-abortion extremists have made clear what their endgame is. And when these people tell you who they are, you’d better believe them. ‘I’ve never worn trousers up a mountain, and I never will’ ---------------------------------------------------------- I find cycling in a dress awkward. Meanwhile, Cecilia Llusco, one of Bolivia’s first female Indigenous mountain climbers, scales icy peaks in a pollera: a traditional voluminous floral skirt. Don’t miss this wonderful Guardian feature on the Cholita climbers of Bolivia–it has some incredible photographs. Melania Trump wants you to know she is passionately pro-choice -------------------------------------------------------------- In her new memoir the former first lady writes, “Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body.” Good question Melania! Ever tried asking your husband that? Speaking of which, Melania’s decision to speak out about abortion rights a month before the election feels part of a calculated strategy by the Trump campaign to soften its rhetoric on abortion. Prominent Palestinian journalist Wafa Aludaini killed in an Israeli airstrike ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wafa was killed alongside her husband, her five-year-old daughter and her seven-month-old son. As Reporters Without Borders recently noted: “At the rate journalists are being killed in Gaza, there will soon be no-one left to keep you informed.” India’s government thinks criminalizing marital rape would be “excessively harsh” --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One in 25 women in India have faced sexual violence from their husbands, the BBC reports. And, of course, nothing happens to most of these men because marital rape is not a criminal offence in India. For years now, campaigners have been petitioning India’s supreme court to try and change this but have faced enormous resistance from the government, religious groups, and men’s rights activists. An affidavait submitted by India’s Interior Ministry on Thursday argued criminalizing marital rape “may seriously impact the conjugal relationship and may lead to serious disturbances in the institution of marriage.” It also said that while a man “does not have any fundamental right to violate the consent of his wife” including marital rape under anti-rape laws would be “excessively harsh” and “disproportionate”. On her second full day in office, Claudia Sheinbaum said her government had proposed reforms to broaden women’s rights, including a constitutional guarantee of equal pay for equal work. EU court rules gender and nationality enough to grant Afghan women asylum ------------------------------------------------------------------------- An important ruling by the European court of justice recognizes Afghan women as a persecuted group. The week in podtriarchy ----------------------- In 2012 Melania Trump famously posted a photo of a smiling beluga whale with the caption “what is she thinking?” Despite the fact that entire podcast episodes have been devoted to this question, we still don’t know. Scientists have recently discovered, however, that bottlenose dolphins ‘smile’ at each other to communicate during social play. The open-mouth expression is meant to signal fun and avoid conflict. So, in other words, dolphins have better social skills than many politicians.

A man has been charged in the high-profile case of a doctor’s rape and murder in a Kolkata hospital, a crime that prompted widespread anger and protests over the threat of sexual violence faced by women in [India](https://www.theguardian.com/world/india). The suspect, Sanjay Roy, was arrested the day after the young doctor’s bloodied body was discovered on 9 August in a room at RG Kar hospital, where she had gone to rest after a 36-hour shift. On Monday the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) confirmed he had been formally charged with rape and murder. Roy was a volunteer at the hospital assisting patients. The CBI charge sheet said he had raped and then murdered the doctor as she slept. It indicated that only Roy was involved in the crime and that he could face the death penalty. The CBI charged Roy on the basis of interviews and CCTV footage, which appeared to show him entering the seminar room at about 4.30am and then emerging about 30 minutes later. The woman’s body was discovered hours later by a junior doctor, with her eyes, mouth and genitals bleeding. An autopsy revealed she had about 25 internal and external injuries as a result of the attack and had died by strangulation. The brutality of the doctor’s rape and murder sent ripples of horror across the country, with the supreme court saying the case had “shocked the conscience of the nation”. The outrage was compounded by allegations that senior hospital staff had tried to cover up the incident. The then head of the hospital, Sandip Ghosh, allegedly made the victim’s family wait several hours before allowing them to see her body and they were initially informed she had taken her own life. Ghosh was later arrested on charges of tampering with evidence. The hospital was said to have taken 14 hours to get an official report filed to the police. The parents of the doctor alleged that police had also attempted to cover up the crime and bribe them to stay quiet. The brutality of the murder and allegations of a cover-up prompted mass protests across the country and a lengthy strike by junior doctors in Kolkata, who demanded that the state government do more to protect their safety in hospitals and ensure justice for the victim. The strikes against the West Bengal government continued for weeks, with protesters saying they would not return to work until their demands were met. They were finally called off after a meeting with the West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, who said she had agreed to most of their demands, but resumed soon after when doctors said they were not satisfied. Six junior doctors are on a hunger strike in Kolkata, which they began this week, with the removal of the state health secretary and accountability for the alleged corruption and cover-up of the crime among their demands. The case also prompted a wider discussion around the issue of women’s safety in India, which has remained a longstanding concern despite numerous high-profile rapes and killings of women prompting promises of change. In 2012, the story of a young women who was gang raped and killed on a bus and her body then dumped by the road stirred up global outrage and led to changes in the law and promises for the greater protection of women in public spaces. Nationwide protests broke out again in 2019 after a veterinary doctor was raped and killed, and her body burned in the city of Hyderabad. This year there was outrage after a Spanish cyclist was gang raped as she travelled through the state of Jharkhand. Activists say new laws and stricter punishments have done little to address the root causes of sexual violence in India and, according to government data, the problem is worsening. The most recent data from 2022 shows that almost 450,000 crimes against women were reported, up 4% on the previous year, with more than 7% of the alleged crimes rape related. Due to a deep-rooted culture of stigma and shame around rape and sexual assault, experts say the real figures are likely much higher.

 NEW DELHI — An Indian court on Saturday found a police volunteer guilty for the rape and murder of a trainee doctor, a crime that [sparked countrywide protests](https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2024/08/26/g-s1-18366/rape-murder-doctor-india-sexual-violence-protests) and hospital strikes last year amid renewed concerns over lack of safety for women. The killing of the 31-year-old physician while she was on duty at a hospital in the eastern city of Kolkata in August highlighted once again the chronic issue of violence against women in the country. The trial in the case was fast-tracked through India's notoriously sluggish legal system and arguments began in November. Judge Anirban Das said the sentence for 33-year-old Sanjay Roy will be announced on Monday and could range from life imprisonment to the death penalty. Police discovered the bloodied body of the woman at the city's R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital's seminar hall on Aug. 9. An autopsy later found the victim had been strangled and confirmed sexual assault. Roy was arrested a day after the crime. He has since consistently maintained his innocence and told the court that he was not guilty. The case was initially being investigated by the Kolkata police but later the court handed over the probe to federal investigators after state government officers were accused of mishandling the investigation. After the incident, doctors and medical students across India [held protests and rallies](https://www.npr.org/2024/08/29/nx-s1-5092374/anger-from-the-rape-and-murder-of-a-female-doctor-in-india-is-now-political) demanding justice and better security for them. Thousands of women across the country also protested on the streets, demanding justice for the victim as they participated in "Reclaim The Night" marches. Some protesters called for the perpetrator of the crime to be given the death penalty. The incident highlighted rising sexual violence against women in India and prompted India's Supreme Court to set up a national task force that suggested ways to enhance safety measures in government hospitals. Many cases of crimes against women go unreported in India due to the stigma surrounding sexual violence, as well as a lack of faith in the police. Women's rights activists say the problem is particularly acute in rural areas, where the community sometimes shames victims of sexual assault and families worry about their social standing. Still, the number of recorded rape cases in the country has increased. In 2022, police recorded 31,516 reports of rape — a 20% jump from 2021, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. In 2012, the gang rape and killing of a 23-year-old student on a New Delhi bus galvanized massive protests across India. It inspired lawmakers to order harsher penalties for such crimes, as well as the creation of fast-track courts dedicated to rape cases. The government also introduced the death penalty for repeat offenders. The rape law amended in 2013 also criminalized stalking and voyeurism and lowered the age at which a person can be tried as an adult from 18 to 16.

EPA The incident sent shockwaves across India and triggered mass protests A court in India has convicted a man of the rape and murder of a trainee doctor - a crime that sparked nationwide outrage. Sanjay Roy, a hospital volunteer worker, was found guilty over the attack, which happened in August last year at a hospital in Kolkata city in West Bengal state. The incident caused shockwaves across the country, leading to widespread protests and concerns over the safety of healthcare workers in India, especially women. Judge Anirban Das said the sentence, which will be announced on Monday, would range from life in prison to the death penalty. Roy has maintained his innocence and said previously that he was being framed. The victim's mother told the AFP news agency that people would lose faith in India's legal system if Roy was not handed the death penalty. The body of the 31-year-old doctor, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was found on 9 August 2024 at at the busy, state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata. After a gruelling 36-hour shift, she had gone to sleep in the hospital's seminar hall. Her half-naked, severely injured, body was later discovered near a podium by a colleague. The post-mortem examination found the victim had been strangled and had injuries showing she fought back. Wikimedia Commons The incident happened at the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata According to the charge sheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which the BBC has seen, Roy went to the hospital in a drunken state and found the female doctor sleeping alone. He was arrested a day after the crime. The case was initially being investigated by the Kolkata police but later the court handed over the probe to the CBI after state officials were accused of mishandling it. For weeks after the incident, doctors and medical students across India held protests and rallies demanding justice and better security for doctors. One such protest, the ["Reclaim the Night"](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crmwj4z1xpko) march, saw tens of thousands of women walk through the streets at night in Kolkata and other cities on 14 August, the eve of India's Independence Day. In December, the victim's parents petitioned the Calcutta High Court for a fresh investigation, expressing a lack of faith in the CBI's investigation. They argued that Roy alone could not have committed the crime and stated they would be satisfied only when all those involved were brought to justice. The high court has said it will consider the plea only if the Supreme Court - which is monitoring the case - directs it to do so. The incident raised concerns about rising cases of violence against health workers in India - many of whom face physical abuse by angry patients or their relatives. A 2017 survey by the Indian Medical Association found that over 75% of doctors in India have experienced some form of violence. The survey also revealed that nearly 63% of doctors fear potential violence while treating patients. Meanwhile, sexual violence against women remains a widespread problem in India. [More than 31,000 rapes were reported in India in 2022](https://www.ncrb.gov.in/uploads/nationalcrimerecordsbureau/custom/1701935247TABLE3A3.pdf), according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). Many rape cases in India go unreported, mostly due to social stigma around sexual violence and a lack of trust in the police and judicial system. Activists say this often results in the victim being shamed instead of the perpetrator, especially in rural areas. In 2012, the rape and murder of a medical student by a group of men in India's capital Delhi drew global attention and triggered similar, wider protests. The public anger prompted authorities to amend rape laws in 2013. The changes broadened the definition of the crime, set strict punishments for sexual assault and lowered the age at which a person can be tried from 18 to 16. _Follow BBC News India on_ [_Instagram_](https://www.instagram.com/bbcnewsindia/)_,_ [_YouTube,_](https://www.youtube.com/@bbcnewsindia/featured) [_Twitter_](https://x.com/BBCIndia) _and_ [_Facebook_](https://www.facebook.com/bbcindia/)_._

An Indian police volunteer has been sentenced to life in prison for the rape and murder of a junior doctor at the hospital where she worked in Kolkata, a crime that sparked nationwide protests and widespread hospital [strikes](https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/12/doctors-strike-in-india-after-and-at-state-run-hospital) last year. The court rejected demands for the death penalty, saying it was not a “rarest-of-rare” crime. The woman’s body [was found in a classroom](https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/12/doctors-strike-in-india-after-and-at-state-run-hospital) at the state-run RG Kar medical college and hospital on 9 August. Other doctors stayed off work for weeks to demand justice for her and better security at public hospitals. Sanjay Roy, the police volunteer, [was convicted by judge Anirban Das on Saturday](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/18/indian-court-finds-police-volunteer-guilty-trainee-doctor), who said circumstantial evidence had proved the charges against him. Roy had claimed he was innocent and that he had been framed, and sought clemency. The federal police, who investigated the case, said the crime belonged to the “rarest-of-rare” category and Roy, therefore, deserved the death penalty. “I do not consider it as a rarest-of-rare crime,” Das said as he sentenced Roy to life in jail on both the counts of rape and murder on Monday. “Life imprisonment, meaning imprisonment until death.” The judge said he had come to the conclusion it was not a rarest-of-rare crime after considering all the evidence and the circumstances linked to it. He said Roy could appeal to a higher court. The sentence was announced in a packed courtroom on Monday as the judge allowed the public to witness proceedings. The fast-tracked trial had not been open to the public. The parents of the junior doctor were among those in court on Monday. Security was stepped up with dozens of police personnel deployed at the court complex. [](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/20/indian-police-volunteer-gets-life-sentence-for-raping-and-murdering-trainee-doctor#img-2) The rape and murder of the student sparked state-wide protests and strikes by medical students and doctors. Photograph: Rajat Gupta/EPA The parents had said earlier they were not satisfied with the investigation and suspected more people were involved in the crime. Their lawyer, Amartya Dey, told Reuters on Monday that they had sought the death penalty for Roy and also demanded that those involved in what they called the “larger conspiracy” be brought to justice. Protesting doctors had said that demonstrations would continue until justice was done. India’s federal police cited 128 witnesses in its investigation, of whom 51 were examined during the fast-tracked trial that began in November. Police have also charged the officer heading the local police station and the head of the college at the time of the crime with destruction of the crime scene and tampering with evidence.

Getty Images The crime sparked huge protests across the country A court in India has sentenced a man to life in prison for the rape and murder of a junior doctor, in a case that sparked nationwide outrage and protests. The judge rejected demands for the death penalty but said that Sanjoy Roy, a hospital volunteer who was [convicted](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gxp7dpl5po) over the weekend, would spend the rest of his life in jail. Roy has maintained he is innocent and is expected to appeal against the verdict in a higher court. The victim's family said they wanted him to be hanged, and that they were "shocked" by the sentence. "We will continue our fight, and won't let investigations stop... Come what may, we will fight for justice," the woman's father told AFP news agency. Indian law prohibits revealing the identity of victims of sexual violence and that of their family members. The trainee doctor's murder at the hospital in the eastern city of Kolkata where she worked sent shockwaves across the country last August. The 31-year-old had gone to sleep in the seminar hall of the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital after a night shift. Her half-naked, severely injured body was later discovered near a podium by a colleague. The crime sparked widespread protests and concerns over the safety of healthcare workers in India, especially women. According to the chargesheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which the BBC has seen, Roy went to the hospital in a drunken state and found the female doctor sleeping alone. The autopsy report indicated that the woman had been strangled and had injury marks that showed she fought back. Roy was arrested a day after the crime and has consistently denied the allegations. In Kolkata, doctors went on strike for weeks, demanding action against the accused and officials who they said were complicit in delaying or derailing the investigation.