Warning: Some readers may find the following disturbing.
A shocking report has emerged in India of a 4-year-old girl allegedly gang raped as up to 50 men are brought in for questioning by police . The girl will require extensive surgery and in the meantime has undergone surgery for a colostomy bag. The girl was sodomized in the attack and suffered vaginal trauma. The girl was also physically attacked with cuts and bruises to her face, which also needed treatment.
“The injuries are grievous and will require several surgeries.”
NDTVMinor’s rape in Delhi: one detained The HinduFamily members of a four-year-old girl who was brutalised in K… http://t.co/sPRI48m0MB
— acrossUpdate (@acrossUpdate) October 11, 2015
Seema Shukla (a false name used in the most recent reports), currently waits at the hospital for updates to her daughter’s condition. Reports say there were at least two men. As reported by India Today , all possible efforts are being made to save the little girl and repair the damage.
“Her entire body was slashed with a knife on Friday evening near her home in Keshav Puram, northwest Delhi. Her privates had been torn apart, which forced specialized doctors to perform a three-hour colostomy surgery on her in the wee hours of Saturday.”
The girl was found in a public outdoor toilet area, full of industrial — and human — waste. This type of public defecation is common in India. Her family had been out looking for her for two hours when she was brought back by a woman soaked in blood and unable to speak after the horrifying ordeal.
The girl was brought into the hospital 8 p.m. on Friday, local time. The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chairperson Swati Maliwal, an advocate for women’s issues, has kept up with the case and has visited the girl in hospital.
Can’t get the little girls picture out of my mind who was raped in Keshavpuram. Been so terribly brutalized. The suspect is still at large.
— Swati Maliwal (@SwatiJaiHind) October 11, 2015
This is not the first time that a case of the rape of a toddler hit the headlines in Delhi. A 3-year-old girl was raped by a 22-year-old man at Pillanji in south Delhi who turned out to be her uncle. The girl managed to say who was responsible before passing out from the pain of the attack and bleeding from her private parts. She was subsequently put on life support systems.
In response to the announcement, Indians living in Delhi express their anger at the hostility toward having a girl and furthermore, the view that the poor, who are targeted for rape, suffer what they must.
India has a bad reputation for rape and a recent case in which two sisters were allegedly ordered to be raped and paraded naked in front of the village has stirred widespread condemnation from the international community.
On September 1, 2015, two sisters accused their village elders of sentencing them to be “ repeatedly raped ” as punishment for their brother’s transgression of eloping with a woman from a higher caste.
Ms Kumari, one of the sisters, petitioned India’s Supreme Court for protection. Amnesty International gained 200,000 signatures, which garnered international attention.
Defending her claim, Ms Kumari explained the situation.
“My father got a call from a neighbour and told us not to come back. They said that the Khap panchayat – that are all Jats – took the decision to rape my sister and me and parade us naked. They want revenge.”
Delhi and India at large have been associated with rape. Many argue that there are many false allegations and that other countries have a higher incidence of rape, and therefore that the media is unfair in highlighting the problem in India. However, this most recent attack is more evidence that a problem does exist and that the wider problem of women’s rights has no immediate solution. For now, India’s deepest sorrows are with this little girl, the most recent casualty of the ongoing rapes in Delhi.
[Image by Worldzine / Pixabay]