Women unsafe in India: victim’s family

IT’S been two years since the horrific gang rape of a student in the Indian capital shocked the world. But according to the victim’s family, the safety of women has not improved in the country.

An Indian girl participates in a street play to create awareness on violence against women during a protest ahead of the second anniversary of the deadly gang rape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student on a bus, in New Delhi, India, Monday, Dec. 15, 2014. The case sparked public outrage and helped make women’s safety a common topic of conversation in a country where rape is often viewed as a woman’s personal shame to bear. (AP Photo/Tsering Topgyal)

WOMEN’S safety in India hasn’t improved since the fatal gang-rape of a student in New Delhi, the victim’s parents said on the anniversary of the attack that sparked international outrage.

Candlelit vigils and a public meeting on women’s safety were planned in New Delhi on Tuesday to mark the second anniversary of the attack that unleashed a wave of public anger over levels of violence against women in India.

The mother of the 23-year-old student said she was disheartened by what she feared were still high numbers of attacks, despite a tough new law against rapists.

“There are attacks happening everyday,” the mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told NDTV news channel.

“Seeing this (daily reports of attacks), it does not feel like anything has changed. Everything is the same.” A survey published Tuesday said 91 per cent of women also saw no improvements in safety despite a range of measures rolled out after the attack, including improved policing, women’s helplines and fast-track courts as well as the new law.

An Indian woman waits at a bus stop where the victim of a deadly gang rape in a moving bus had boarded the bus two years ago, in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2014. The case sparked public outrage and helped make women’s safety a common topic of conversation in a country where rape is often viewed as a woman’s personal shame to bear. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

The survey by the Hindustan Times newspaper of 2557 women also found that 97 per cent had been victims themselves of some kind of sexual harassment.

The student was savagely attacked, including with an iron rod, by six men after boarding a private bus on her way home from the cinema with a male friend on December 16, 2012.

She died from her injuries 13 days later. The brutality of the assault and her determination to survive so she could report her attackers to police sparked large-scale street protests.

Four of her attackers were convicted and given the death penalty in September after the case was fast-tracked, while a juvenile was sentenced to a correctional facility.

Another died in jail after apparently committing suicide.

Indian students participate in a rally to mark the second anniversary of the deadly gang rape of a student on a bus in New Delhi, in Mumbai, India, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2014. The case sparked public outrage and helped make women’s safety a common topic of conversation in a country where rape is often viewed as a woman’s personal shame to bear. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

The case sparked soul-searching about India’s treatment of women and also led to initiatives to educate men about respect and equal gender rights in the deeply patriarchal country.

But activists say this month’s case of a female passenger allegedly raped by an Uber taxi driver with a record of sexual attacks shows the country still has a long way to go two years after the 2012 incident.