Content warning: this article contains mentions of rape, sexual assault and violence

With a rape reportedly occurring every 16 minutes, India has a dark reputation as one of the most dangerous places in the world for women. A new case in Kolkata has brought the issue of gender-based and sexual violence to the forefront once again. On 9 August, a 31-year-old trainee doctor was found dead in a seminar room in the Kolkata hospital where she worked. Local news reports said she’d fallen asleep in a classroom after a 36-hour-shift, as there was no designated rest area for staff members. But the autopsy showed she had suffered severe injuries and that her body showed signs of brutal physical and sexual assault.

The parents of the victim were initially told by hospital authorities that “their daughter had committed suicide”, lawyer and women’s rights activist Vrinda Grover told Al Jazeera. Her parents believe that more than one person was involved in her death, but only one male hospital volunteer worker has been arrested so far. The Kolkata High Court has transferred the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation, the domestic crime investigating agency of India.

In the weeks following the Kolkata case, “reclaim the march”-style protests broke out in several states across India, demanding better security and protections for women in the workplace. Protestors, many of whom were medical professionals themselves, said they don’t feel safe at work, don’t have safe resting places for when they do shift work and are regularly sexually harassed by peers and patients. A nationwide strike by the Indian Medical Association also included a refusal of services to non-emergency patients. And when Indian government officials demanded that the protesting doctors return to work as usual, they refused until their demands were heard and met.

Sadly, this case is not a new or unique occurrence. Sexual violence is rampant in India, where 90 rapes were reported on average every day in 2022. The issue of violence against women and girls has been ongoing in India since a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, known as Nirbhaya, was brutally gang-raped and murdered in 2012. Four men were hanged for the rape, which had triggered nationwide protests at the time, during which demonstrators held placards criticising the country’s police, burnt effigies of rapists and held candlelit vigils.

“It’s been more than a decade since India was shaken by brutal gang-rape and issues such as corruption, failure to effectively register cases of sexual violence, difficulties in accessing support services for survivors, continued pressure from families, community and panchayat members maintaining their silence and large-scale victim blaming still persists,” Dr Madhumita Pandey, a senior lecturer in criminology at Sheffield Hallam University, tells Stylist.

The laws against rape and sexual abuse in India were strengthened after the 2012 case and the country has several laws aimed at protecting women, including the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005, the Dowry Prohibition Act 1961, the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act 2013 and the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006. However, the Indian government and its authorities have failed to effectively enforce these laws and so they exist mostly in writing for many Indian women.

In the twelve years since Nirbhaya’s murder, there have been countless cases of violence against women and girls. In November 2019, a 27-year-old veterinarian doctor was allegedly raped and murdered and her body set on fire in Hyderabad by four drunk men on the pretext of helping her fix her scooter, which they themselves had damaged. A few weeks later, in Unnao in the Uttar Pradesh state, a 23-year-old rape victim was allegedly set on fire by five men, including her rapist, as she was on her way to a court hearing of her case.

Dr Pandey also states that the question that “we must all ask ourselves is that why must we wait for some brutal case once every decade to display such outrage? Where is the outrage when the statistics clearly show alarming number of women and girls reporting violence being perpetrated against them?”

According to the 2021 report ‘Sexual Violence in South Asia: Legal & Other Barriers to Justice’ by Equality Now and Dignity Alliance International, the conviction rates for rape in India are extremely low, despite the high prevalence of sexual violence. Police inaction, inadequate investigations and mishandling in evidence collection practices were identified as just some of the key barriers affecting how cases progress through India’s criminal justice system.

Equality Now said in a recent statement that the initial reports on the handling of evidence of the Kolkata rape and murder case seem to indicate a similar pattern. It urgently calls for the “stronger implementation of sexual violence laws, better enforcement of existing protections, accountability from all institutions involved and immediate action from the Government of India to address systemic failures that prevent perpetrators of sexual violence crimes from being held accountable.”

Images: Getty