Recently someone shared a post of an Indian woman defending herself against what may be her spouse, at a train station somewhere in India. Now, I know many people do not like or believe in violence, except when it comes to personal self-defense, but I think most people would say that this video fits into that category. If you are unfamiliar with India’s history of violence and abuse towards women, let me share some facts.
According to a report prepared by India’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB):
- A crime is recorded against women in every three minutes in India
- Every 60 minutes, two women are raped in India.
- Every six hours, a young married woman is found beaten to death, burnt or driven to suicide.
- One case of cruelty committed by either the husband or relative of the husband occurs every nine minutes.
- According to a “United Nation Population Fund Report,” around two-thirds of married Indian women are victims of domestic violence attacks and as many as 70 percent of married women in India between the ages of 15 and 49 are victims of beatings, rape or forced sex.
To offer some perspective on these statistics, here are some facts about Domestic Violence in the United States. Information courtesy of stopdv.org:
- Every 9 seconds a woman is battered in the United States.
AMA, 1998, Georgia Department of Human Resources, 1999 - Conservatively, each year 1 million women suffer nonfatal violence by an intimate.
Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report: Violence Against Women: Estimates from the Redesigned Survey (NCJ-154348), August 1995, p.3. - Other estimates include 4 million women in the U.S. are battered each year.
American Psychl. Ass’n Violence and the Family: Report of the American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Violence and the Family (1996), p.10. - Nearly 1 in 3 women experience domestic violence in their lifetime.
American Psychl. Ass’n Violence and the Family: Report of the American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Violence and the Family (1996), p.10. - Ninety to ninety-five percent of domestic violence victims are women.
A Report of the Violence against Women Research Strategic Planning Workshop sponsored by the National Institute of Justice in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1995. - As many as 324,000 women each year experience intimate partner violence during their pregnancy.
Gazmarairian et al, 2000
Let’s look at neighboring Pakistan. According to a study carried out in 2009 by Human Rights Watch:
- It is estimated that between 70 and 90 percent of women in Pakistan have suffered some form of abuse.
- An estimated 5,000 women are killed per year from domestic violence, with thousands of others maimed or disabled.
- The majority of victims of violence have no legal recourse.
- Law enforcement authorities do not view domestic violence as a crime and usually refuse to register any cases brought to them.
- There are very few women’s shelters in the country, victims have limited ability to escape from violent situations.
These statistics just make my skin crawl! This is clearly a global problem, and keep this in mind; I only shared a tiny fraction of the statistic on Domestic Violence in The United States. The fact that statistics and studies are so few for countries like India and Pakistan is disturbing in and of itself.? When you think of all the education and economic opportunities in India, it’s hard to imagine how this issue can coincide with those accomplishments.? But it seems more and more women in India have had enough and are taking their personal safety into their own hands. In New Dehli on December 16, 2012, a 23-year-old-woman was gang raped and repeatedly violated on a city bus with an iron bar. Self-defense trainer Anuj Sharma had this to say:
“There has been a certain surge in the level of demand for services like self-defence and personal protective training. I think this infamous case has forced people to think that they can no longer put this (safety issue) on the backburner, self-defence is a priority for them.”
Here’s the video:
