XPost: soc.culture.indian, alt.fan.jai-maharaj, soc.culture.usa
XPost: soc.culture.british, alt.politics, talk.politics.misc
XPost: alt.true-crime, soc.culture.india
From: alt.fan.jai-maharaj@googlegroups.com

Forwarded post:

Against the narrative that "India has a Rape Culture"

By an anonymous author
July 17, 2018

People who say India has a "rape culture" and start
labeling all of us as rapists, read this (I've written this
in the context of USA, but it applies to most western
countries):

First fact: Media reporting standards are not the same

India's media reports things differently from media in
other parts of the world. Media reports in various parts of
the world have themes. American media focus a lot on race
issues. Middle East media focuses a lot on sectarian
issues. Indian media focuses a lot on gender issues. It
would be faulty to not recognize the themes and blindly use
media as a barometer.

Crimes get a disproportionate share of India's media
reporting. Top news sources in the US, don't report rapes
in the way India does. For instance, 25 women in the US
were raped/assaulted in the time I took to write this
comment (about 30 mins). You wouldn't likely read about any
of these 25 cases in the media.

When a woman was sexually assaulted in an Uber taxi in
Delhi, it became a major news and the government quickly
reacted. But, such crimes involving Uber is fairly routine
in the US.

Sources:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/12/16/least-two-women-who-reported-sexual-assaults-boston-sunday-were-using-uber-police-say/cFHpgzcfIoBYiTfWgOqYOK/story.html

http://abc7news.com/325011/

http://www.whosdrivingyou.org/rideshare-incidents.html#SexualAssaults

In the US and Europe, such rape stories would come in local
media and just move out of national attention. You probably
didn't even come across it. US local governments didn't
pursue Uber with the same vigor. Indian media selectively
picks up a case and rallies around that. This creates a
distorted reality.

The sad truth is that it is not India vs. US. It is that
women get raped and it doesn't become a big news. See this
as a global problem.

Second fact: India's rape rate is not the highest in the
world. Not even close

According to the 2010 UN data on rape, the rapes per
100,000 people in India is 0.4 and 27.3 in USA. Going by
these statistics, rape rate in USA is a whopping 6825% of
India, so much for the "rape culture" in India.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/top-5-countries-highest-rates-rape-1434355 http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Rapes/Per-capita

If you don't like the statistics, construct better ones.
Figure out what factor you want to measure that is not
covered in the reports from world bodies. Construct
scientifically accepted surveys. Get to the root of the
problem with logic. Use your stuff between the ears,
instead of passing judgements with hot gas.

Under-reporting of Rapes:

Now I knew that you were going to mention this that rapes
are under reported in India and it's true, but the matter
of fact is that rapes are under reported everywhere in the
world, including USA. More than 70% of rapes go under
reported in USA.

Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/21/rape-study-report-america-us_n_4310765.html

https://cavatus.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/sweden-a-raped-country/

Now for the sake of argument, let's give you the benefit of
doubt and assume that only 5% of the rapes in India are
reported and 95% cases go unreported. Also assume that 100%
of rapes in USA are reported.

By that logic, the real rape rate in India will be 0.4 x 20
= 8. Now let us go further and double that too, we get 8 x
2 = 16, which is still way less than 27.3 (the rape rate in
USA).

Therefore, even if you multiply the rape rate of India by
40, it still doesn't matches USA. This proves that India is
a much safer country for women compared to USA.

In cultures across the world, rape carries a stigma.
Because, most of the rapes happen with people who are close
to the woman. Thus, there is a strong social pressure
against reporting. This basic fact is lost on the many who
are giving their uneducated comments on the issue.

"The number of recorded rapes in India is certainly a
substantial underestimate, but even if we take five
times -- or ten times -- that figure, the corrected and
enlarged estimates of rapes would still be substantially
lower in India than in the US, the UK, Sweden, or South
Africa (even with the assumption that there is no
underreporting in these other countries)."
-- Nobel Laureate, Amartya Sen.

In summary, this is plainly a media distortion where one
country reports rapes with more vigor than an another
country. This leads to blind stereotyping that destroys
people's lives & careers for no fault of their own.

Instead of getting into such faulty stereotyping without
any statistical evidence, let us as humans figure out ways
we can make world safer for women. Because, they are
getting raped all over the world at an alarming rate.

You still believe India has a "rape culture" or that USA is
a safe country for women?

Here is a simple choice for those who want to discuss this
issue:

o Are you interested in creating solutions for making women
safe across race, creed, class and country?

o Do you want to pick up some news item to justify your own
stereotypes about a country?

If you belong to the former group, let us constructively
engage in a debate on the solutions. If you belong to the
latter group, you are not the solution, but the problem.

Even more data:

Rape Data on India

Reported Rapes:

Based on United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
data from 2012:

24,923 reported rapes in India, or 4.26 reported rapes for
every 1,00,000 women

This places India at 85 out of 121 countries.

This video discusses the above statistics:

Rapes are over-hyped in India:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdGUPTub-L0

Also see this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdoeoU48DIg

Unreported Rapes

Based on a survey conducted by UN Women:

India reported 8.5 rapes for every 100 women over their
lifetimes, based on the answers they gave household-level
surveyors.

The question "if the women had experienced sexual violence
at the hands of an intimate partner or any other person"
placed India at 39 out of 99 countries.

Ten per cent of women in India reported having experienced
sexual violence by their husbands during their lifetime. In
the UN Women database, this places India at 43 out of 86
countries with comparable data.

Source:

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/comment-article-rape-rhetoric-and-reality/article6705077.ece

Rape Conviction Rate

According to the Guardian, just 7% of reported rapes in the
U.K. resulted in convictions during 2011-12. In Sweden, the
conviction rate is as low as 10%. France had a conviction
rate of 25% in 2006.

Poor India, a developing nation with countless challenges,
managed an impressive 24.2% conviction rate in 2012. That's
thanks to the efforts of a lot of good people -- police,
lawyers, victims and their families -- working heroically
with limited resources.

Source:

Why Rape Seems Worse in India Than Everywhere Else (but
Actually Isn't)

Archive link:

http://web.archive.org/web/20150317034239/http://world.time.com/2013/11/08/why-rape-seems-worse-in-india-than-everywhere-else-but-actually-isnt/

[Full credit to the unknown author who compiled this
comment. I couldn't identify who wrote it originally.]

End of forwarded post.

Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.jai-maharaj

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)