 Rape:
are we to blame?
by Kumudini Hettiarachchi
Where were we, oh where were we, when the
following incidents and many more took place not so long ago?
* An eight-year-old girl, who had not even reached puberty, is dragged
into the jungle, while returning from school, by an army deserter, brutally
raped and her head smashed repeatedly on stones in Kurunegala. Her nude
body is found with half the guava fruit she had been enjoying while walking
home, along with her school bag and shoes. She was the sixth in an impoverished
family of seven. Her parents are eking out a living by cultivating a small
plot of land. The rape and murder case is pending.
* An 11-year-old "servant" girl is allegedly raped by a Provincial
Council member (50) in Tissamaharama, but there is difficulty in getting
the child's family to take the matter up in courts due to "balapam"
(pressure).
* A nine-year-old girl in Aranayake is raped by her father, who is serving
in the army, whenever he comes home from the operational areas. The girl's
mother is in the Middle East. Police are reluctant to take action against
the soldier.
* A seven-year-old in Kurunegala is dragged into the shrubs by an army
deserter and violated with a stick.
* A 13-year-old is pulled into the shrine room and allegedly raped by
a 29-year-old monk in the Rambukkana area.
These are a few (?) of the documented rape incidents this year. All
these and many more have appeared in the media, mostly in the vernacular
newspapers.
Therefore, I feel I have the right to ask, where we were, the Colombo
middle class and the so-called groups "looking after" the interests
of women and children in this country?
Maybe we were abroad on some jaunt, attending conferences with all expenses
paid by some aid organisation, maybe we were in our comfortable offices
writing reports about "violence against women", maybe we didn't
read the vernacular papers or maybe we just didn't care, because it was
all happening, in a majority of cases, to the humble, the poor, the rural
women and children of this land.
According to police statistics 900 cases of rape were reported in 1997
alone, while according to the media 898 cases of rape have been reported
from January to October this year.
But these incidents didn't touch us. We were asleep. There wasn't a
murmur about that hapless child of eight, raped and killed in Kurunegala.
For us in Colombo it didn't matter, we were cocooned against such violence
until it happened to Rita John on Crow's Island. Yes, it was a heinous
crime - newly-wed Rita, was dragged by a gang before her husband's eyes,
forced into a trishaw, taken to the marshes, gang-raped and murdered brutally.
There is general consensus that such things should not be tolerated,
that the perpetrators should be punished severely. Only after Rita's rape
and murder did, we, the saviours of the nation's women and children wake
up from our slumber. Maybe we saw the stories because the English newspapers
too splashed them across their pages. We woke up then with a bloodcurdling
yell - violence against women is increasing.
"Do something," we shouted to the government. As a cynical
newspaper woman, I tend to question, "How sincere are we?" Wasn't
it just a little hypocritical that in the latter stages of the year and
only after Rita John's murder that we took to street protests? What about
all those other rapes?
What about that eight-old-year whose head was smashed on the rocks after
her innocence was violated in a brutal and beastly manner? This brings
echoes of 1990, when the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna's insurrection was on
the wane.
A little voice, which I cannot hush, keeps saying that maybe we the
Colombo women took up placards and braved the weather at Lipton's Circus,
because the foreign media would have been interested in Rita John's case,
remember she was a foreigner, an Indian. As such the protesters would catch
the full attention of the foreign media, which would in turn splash it
all over the world and help these self-styled women's groups to get more
and more foreign aid.
Death penalty
With such horrific crimes and perversions being committed against women
and children, the government should seriously consider further tightening
laws against rape. And those convicted of rape should be jailed without
even a slim chance of getting parole for "good behaviour" or
being set free because the government of the day grants this amnesty and
that amnesty to criminals, without a thought for the victims of such beasts.
The other urgent need is to consider whether we should implement the death
penalty.
Of course, human rights groups will start agitating and screaming about
the rights of the accused and whether civilised society should resort to
hanging people to bring about a semblance of a crime-free community.
Their argument would be that unlike in olden times, we should not exact
an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but attempt to "rehabilitate"
such criminals. Do they think that a man who rapes his own daughter or
men who gang-rape women and murder them should be treated with such understanding?
And what about the rights of the victims of these criminals, some of whom
are dead, while others have to live with their agony for the rest of their
lives? What is their plight, knowing that there is no justice in this "dharmishta"
society? What also is the difference between a law-abiding citizen and
a criminal, if the criminal gets away with any barbaric act?
In cases where a fair and just court has heard such cases and is convinced
that the accused is guilty beyond reasonable doubt, the death penalty should
be considered. That would be the ultimate deterrent.
|
