Rape in India: Accessibility and Knowledge

The topic that I would like to talk about is the accessibility to resources and knowledge for rape victims in rural India. Rape is the fourth largest violence in the country, and it is often disappointing to imagine the magnitude of the violence considering ninety percent of these cases are not legally filed or even registered. 

I believe that a big fundamental problem is often rape victims do not know the after-steps of being raped. If they had knowledge about what to do after, there could be better awareness among the society to hold the perpetrator responsible, hence hopefully reducing the number of rape cases. A couple of things play a factor in this problem including, lack of transparency from the legal systems, affordable lawyers, cultural stigma, corrupt policing, and sometimes even no policing in extreme rural areas of the country. 

I believe these factors to be in a constant loop, deepening the problem without a possible break in the spiral. Another big problem aside from these logistical problems, is medical problems. Rural areas do not have the best resource of medical attention that could be demanded by injured rape victims. Population in rural areas also lack the fundamental knowledge of options that could be available to them eg. Plan B, abortion etc. Having said that, even if they did have the knowledge, they often cannot access it nor afford it. There are so many factors within this problem that need to be worked on. I think what would be essential as first steps, is to create a system that would rightfully allocate resources for these victims in terms of knowledge and accessibility.