I am an ostrich when it comes to news on rape. I prefer to bury my head in the sand and not read or hear about it. But even for this ostrich, it’s become next to impossible to do so. After the shocking gang rape in broad daylight in Mumbai – because Mumbai is supposed to have been one of the safe cities for women, dammit – I heard about the brutal rape and murder of a nine-year old child in Gurgaon.

This makes me sick. Disgusted. Afraid. And I’m forced to take a closer look at the issue to try to make sense of the moral depravity that seems to have gripped this country.

But surely, India isn’t the only place where rape is a common occurrence. It happens across the world – in both developed and developing economies.

There’s the Stubenville High School rape case in the US; the brutal gang rape and murder of Anene Booyson in South Africa, where gender violence is “systemic” nationwide; rapes in conflict zones; in Brazil, where an American tourist’s boyfriend was forced to watch as his girlfriend was gang raped…

And that makes me think – why?Continue reading→