In a country, where more than 100 rapes happen in a day, we have to stop punishing the rape victims.
It’s our fault as a society and as a country that we weren’t able to save them from the brutality of the predators. Rather than being supportive of their struggle, we tend to isolate them from society. We tend to blame the rape survivors even though we know it wasn’t their fault at all.
A similar case came to light recently – a private school allegedly refused to give admission to a 16-year-old girl, who was gang-raped in a boarding school in Dehradun.
As per Hindustan Times,
Recently, a private school in Dehradun allegedly denied admission to the girl because she was gang-raped in a boarding school. The rape survivor’s lawyer, Aruna Chauhan said, demanding cancellation of the school’s CBSE affiliation.
“Her parents tried to get her admission into many private schools of the city, but they all refused. While the other schools did not give the parents any explanation, one private school categorically told them that they cannot give admission to her as she is a rape victim.”
Aruna also wrote a letter on behalf of her parents to the chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat and state education minister Arvind Pandey, requesting them to take “strict legal action” against the school.
On August 14, the girl had been allegedly gang-raped by four students from her former boarding school.
When she informed school authorities, they tried to brush it under the rug. The whole matter came to light in September, when the girl thought she was pregnant and informed her elder sister.
Later, the four boys were taken into custody and the boarding school’s director, principal, administration officer, his wife and hostel caretaker were also arrested for alleged destruction of evidence and trying to hush up the matter. Police later confirmed that the girl was not pregnant.
Though the CBSE had canceled the school’s affiliation, the advocate has written to senior superintendent of Uttarakhand police as well, demanding an investigation into how the girl’s identity was revealed.
“The biggest question is that how did the school get to know the child was a rape victim? By law, her identity has to be protected. We want the police to investigate who is behind this” she said.
However, regional officer of CBSE Ranveer Singh said he has not received any written complaint from the advocate
“It is the school’s prerogative to give admission or not. There are many factors which influence a school’s decision. It is not right on the parts of parents and the lawyer to make such allegations” Singh said.
Chauhan said the “defeated” parents wanted to shift her out of Dehradun from the next academic session, but were “left with no choice” and got her admitted to a school in a different state.
Our heart pains when we think of what we could have done if it would have happened to our daughters. How much pain her parents must be enduring as they find themselves watching their daughter go through hell every day.
Do we need to wait for something like this to happen to one of our own, before we stop being silent or stop blaming the victim?
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