April 17th, 2018
A 17 year old girl from Jharkhand, India was attacked and raped by a man who wanted to marry her, but had been rejected. She was then set on fire and is currently in critical condition. This occurred a couple days after a 16 year old girl, also from Jharkhand was raped. When the accused were asked by the village heads to do sit ups and pay a certain sum as punishment, they refused and killed the girl by setting her on fire. It has been 6 years since the Nirbhaya rape case, and very little has changed in regards to safety for women in India. While more cases are reported since, it hasn’t lead to a higher conviction rate, pointing to the inefficiency of the criminal justice system. The recent ordinance passed by the Indian Government introduces the capital punishment for those convicted of rape for girls below the age of 12. Considering the inability of the criminal justice system, will the death penalty be a derrent to child sexual abuse or cause more harm to the victim?
Headline - BBC, shorturl.at/acwKU
Check out the HRW article for more info - https://goo.gl/xuCtj2