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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTwo Indian Sisters Ordered to Be Raped by Village Council Beg Supreme Court for Help
They are being punished by the unelected council because their brother eloped with a married woman from a higher caste
A petition to save two sisters in India from being raped and publicly humiliated for their brothers actions, a punishment handed down by an unofficial village council, has gathered considerable support for its demand that authorities intervene and stop the disgusting ruling from being enforced.
The petition by human-rights organization Amnesty International has garnered over 16,000 signatures thus far, and calls for law enforcement to stop the council-sanctioned rape of 23-year-old Meenakshi Kumari and her 15-year-old sister in Baghpat village in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
The unelected council of elders ordered that Kumari and her sister both members of the low Dalit caste be raped and paraded naked with blackened faces, after their brother eloped with a married woman of a higher caste. He and the woman, who belongs to the dominant Jat caste, were in love and eloped after she was forced to marry someone from her own caste, according to reports.
more
http://time.com/4014444/india-khap-panchayat-two-sisters-rape-ordered-uttar-pradesh/
dumbcat
(2,120 posts)Who are we to be judging their cultural mores?
Do I need:
Rex
(65,616 posts)Their male dominated culture sure does love them some Rape Culture! Sick, pathetic and wrong! Just like living in a caste society. What fucking century is it again?
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)even deserve to survive. Unless this kind of insanity can be stopped, we probably don't.
Coventina
(27,121 posts)I hate my species more and more the older I get.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)but that they're homeless and want the edict lifted so they can go home.
I'm sorry to say but somebody needs to just step up and offer to re-home them far away. They're never going to be safe in that community. AI signatures aside, the patriarchy is so firmly entrenched their safety will never be preserved if they go back. Someone will just carry out the "sentence" regardless...
Despicable.
SwissTony
(2,560 posts)What a fucked up system. Their brother does something "wrong" (which it isn't, IMO), the sisters get raped?
Disgusting.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)with salt. Erase it from the maps as well as from memory.
Syzygy321
(583 posts)except for the idea that women's bodies should receive the shaming punishment.
Basically this is men arguing with other men: "You shamed me by doing something with my female property; now I'll shame you by doing something to your female property!"
The system is based on the understanding that female property is not human and has no rights. Female property exists only to be bought, sold, hurt, used, etc, to further the aims of its various owners. Yet it is vitally important property, since men's honor and manliness and procreation is all tied up in controlling it.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)I really hate the world sometimes.
If they actually get their case into the official courts it will probably stop the atrocity. Still it's appalling.
Xithras
(16,191 posts)Women are chattel in their system. Property that has value.
When one family dishonors another, there has to be "compensation". If the family has no cash to pay out, they are punished by devaluing the families property. By raping and humiliating these young women, their dowry value will be slashed to a fraction of their previous "worth".
In the end, it's all about money. The rights and even the pain of these young women doesn't get factored into it at all. It's simply "we're going to fine the family $X by devaluing their property". Rape is the mechanism they use to do the devaluing.
Yeah, India can be a fucked up place.
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)Yet India still tries to project the image of modernization.
Give these poor girls asylum. They won't be safe even if the ruling is overturned.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Some country should step forward for these girls.
I don't even have words for this kind of batshit insanity.
Iggo
(47,558 posts)snooper2
(30,151 posts)1939
(1,683 posts)saying that "All cultures have equal value".
dumbcat
(2,120 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)dumbcat
(2,120 posts)Didn't want anyone to be disappointed.
I'm sure someone knows how.
trueblue2007
(17,228 posts)And as a woman, I am offended by your statement, which is a lie.
dumbcat
(2,120 posts)And I am offended by your lack of humor and being able to follow a conversation.
I should know better. As a man, I am supposed to be smarter.
IronLionZion
(45,453 posts)...only if you're racist.
AKA, it doesn't. The "unofficial village council" is like the KKK. An american analogy would be if a black man and white woman elope, so the KKK orders the man's sisters to be raped by rednecks to teach black people to learn their place. And then some idiot would say that proves there is something wrong with Americans.
These racist sexist assholes are trying to enforce segregation between castes and have no legal authority whatsoever.
Remember this was their "crime":
If you think even any ordinary Indian people would consider that a crime, and that rape would ever be a punishment, then you are a racist. Does Donald Trump represent America? Do you want to be associated with his supporters?
(This is not directed at the OP or anyone in particular)