A vital part of understanding a social problem, & to preventing it, is an understanding of what causes it. Today we are about to discuss something that has taken our society by storm & each passing day it is spreading like a deadly disease in human society. The word Rape has become now a common word in our daily news. Rape meaning a sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other form of sexual penetration carried out against a person without that person’s consent. Rape is the fourth most common crime against women in India. According to Forbes report 2013 every 20 minutes a rape takes place in the world’s largest democracy. In the world’s super power America situations are more devastating every 98 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted & every 8 minutes, that victim is a child. Meanwhile, only 6 out of every 1,000 perpetrators will end up in prison. More than 5 rapes were reported daily in Delhi in 2017. This year till now many cases of rape made it to people through media & don’t know how many victims are still waiting for justice. Media coverage of sexual assaults may have increased but still there is a biased approach of this 5th pillar of democracy. Custodial rapes in conflict zones like Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, North east states are often ignored & are considered less credible to reporting in larger national interest. So balancing on reporting a rape can’t be ruled out.
Our Jammu Kashmir also is witnessing rise in crime against women, we have a long list of cases from infamous Gulzar Peer to Ajaz Sheikh who under disguise of faith healing Raped thousands of young boys in past two & half decade. We all read in news about Asifa, an 8 year old who was gang raped for days in a temple, 13 year old raped 9 year old in Uttar pardesh, A father gifted his daughter to his friends & latter joined to gang rape her & list can go on, A 21-month-old baby girl was raped by a 40-year-old man from her neighborhood in Delhi’s Gandhi Nagar area in may 2017, Recently a priest of Kapileshwar temple in bengaluru was paraded naked for serial molestation of women dovotees after repeated warnings when priest continued his inapproiate behavior people assaulted & paraded him naked as punishment.how low will human race go. These news are common for our society & most shocking is views of many politicians. Some blame mobile phones, some clothing; some politicians even justify saying it is normal. You may all have heard of Haryana, a state where they believe rapes happens because girl wears attractive clothes, use mobile, they have their own justification of rape. When will society seriously consider rape a growing disease & try to find its cure? Why governments are so helpless? Why judiciary seems to be blind, deaf & dumb on growing Rapes? Most important why human society is so silent? Why does rape exist and what causes it? What is it about our society that makes rape one of the fastest growing violent crimes in this country? Today it was Asifa, Geeta, tomorrow it can be your loved one don’t you feel urgency to stand up & defeat this growing mental sickness of portion of Male population of your society? It is time to stand up & find answers to question why Rapes are increasing with each passing day. What is going in mind of our young generation? What are reasons behind this growing rape mentality? We must understand the sociology of rape in order to effectively work towards the elimination of it. Incidence of rapes is determined by interplay of several factors: Economic, demographic, social, efficiency of the police and judicial systems, and exposure to mass media.
I believe that education is the primary culprit, as there is no solid way of providing our children and adults with the right form of ethical & sexual knowledge. Our education system is victim of confusion, no clear education policy clearly shows how governments have failed people time & again. We have a parallel three to Four system of education: Government run schools, Public schools, Missionary schools, & also many here just get their education from Religious ‘Darasgaah’ which may count another system of education, in this confusion of systems our society is growing confused & our youth is not getting equal opportunities & quality of education, Quality education is very important for a Nation to grow & develop. Our youth is facing lot of problems & society’s heedless, unthinking approach is killing our very own future generations. I would like to draw attention of our readers to few of such social evils which we don’t discuss but they exist in our very own surroundings.
Pornography is a serious problem. Pornography is the presentation or production of sexually explicit pictures, Writings or other material whose primary purpose is to cause sexual stimulation or arousal. There is no such thing as Pornography addiction. This is a fringe diagnosis. The “overuse” of Pornography is related to other psychiatric issues that may require treatment. Watching adult films alters brain similar to activity to drug addicts, Alcoholics. Both having sex & watching porn causes dopamine to be released in the part of the brain responsible for emotions & learning. Internet form of pornography has taken its flow in this 21st century. This form is readily available & easily accessible. Now a day’s children & teenagers are worst addict of pornography because of available in a click feature of internet. Internet pornography has added ten times to the problems & sufferings of the society as it was before the advent of internet. To save our youth we have to act only Laws on paper will not serve we must ensure that these materials must not fall in minors & I advocate a national consensus to ban such websites effectively. Government should take measures to act on war foot to counter this growing rape mentality. A mentality that looks at women as a prey to be hunted down. We have to being somewhere if we want to save our daughters & women from beasts in human form present in our society. At the same time we have to be strict with our laws on women crimes & Government of Jammu Kashmir must increase women police personnel as compared to today’s roll as it has been seen that a rape victim has hesitation in making a report to a Male police officer. Society has to change its thinking of treating a victim as a sinner it was never her fault, these lame excuses of dressing & other are symptoms of rotten social values which needs to be buried & there must be no mercy to a rapist who so ever he is once he attains legal age. Madhumita Padey, a Ph.D student at the criminology department of Anglia University in United Kingdom. She interviewed about 100 rapists in India for her doctoral. She says:” these rapists have the power to make you feel sorry for them. I would almost forget that these men have been convicted of raping a woman. In my experience a lot of these men don’t realize that what they have done is rape”. We have a long journey to ensure safety of our women safety better we begin today to be late like the cities Delhi etc where crime against women has become daily news.
(The author a freelance content writer writes frequently for “Kashmir Horizon”. His views are personal)
