-The Hindu Natpurwa is a village where women have been forced into prostitution for centuries. And one of them is determined to help the others break free. Round faced, stout and dusky, Chandralekha, at age 15, was the most desired girl among the politicians, policemen and senior members of Eastern Uttar Pradesh’s civil society. “They always wanted plump women,” says Chandralekha, now 51 years old. Chandralekha was pushed into prostitution, by her...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Section 370 not for voluntary sex work: Verma panel -Rakhi Chakrabarty
-The Times of India Justice J S Verma Committee did not intend to include sex workers who are in the profession out of their own free will. Sex workers have been protesting against the committee's recommendations, accepted by the government in the proposed Section 370 in the ordinance on the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill 2012, which defined prostitution as exploitation. The National Network of Sex Workers had sought a clarification from the...
More »Former judge’s remarks on Suryanelli victim create a furore-C Gouridasan Nair
-The Hindu MALAPPURAM: Remarks made by former Kerala High Court Judge R. Basant and captured by a Malayalam TV channel, where he describes the Suryanelli sex scandal victim as one who was “used for child prostitution,” have created a furore. In footage televised on Saturday, the former judge, who delivered the January 2005 High Court judgment in the case acquitting 35 out of the 36 accused, says: “She was used for child...
More »Foeticide cases: NCRB says registration, conviction rate low -Amitabh Sinha
-The Indian Express While most incidents of rapes and molestation are never reported because of the social stigma attached to the crime, these, ironically, still form a bulk of the crimes against women that get registered with the police. The reporting of many other crimes, for example foeticide, is abysmally low. The number of cases registered for foeticide in the entire country in 2011 was only 132. In the two preceding years, this...
More »India: examining the motivation for rape -Ruchira Gupta
-Open Democracy Were Ram Singh and his cohort simply claiming a notion of masculinity promoted every day by their role models in politics, business and the media? Ruchira Gupta writes of the steady creeping of a rape culture into the fabric of India, and what needs to be done to counter the idea that women are commodities Let us talk about Ram Singh, the chief rapist accused in the case of Damini,...
More »