Reply to Blaming the Victim (Part III- Save the Girl-Child)

Incest is one of the worse situations that a girl might find herself in. Mom sheds more light on it in her post – Save the Girl-Child.

Save the Girl-Child

By Vidhyalakshmi Rao

64 years ago when I wasn’t even a teenager, an incident shook Delhi. My father brought home an 18-year-old girl, to keep her safe from whom we did not know. My parents would keep talking in secrecy often and the girl also would whisper a few things to my mother.

The girl told me that her father was not like mine. My grandmother heard it and she told my mother to send the girl away. It turned out that the girl’s father had been harassing her sexually since the time she was a child! Her mother had a heart attack due to it and had died, very recently.

Things had gone bad to worse when the girl’s father had tried to molest her even after her mother’s last rites had been completed. She had run away to the neighbor’s place, who had allowed her to stay for one night.

The next day, she was taken to her father’s office (the man worked with my father) and with the permission of the senior officers, she was left there. Again, she got a female guardian only for one night at the office. That is why my father had brought her with him, for safety.

The man and the girl were given psychiatrist counseling. He was admitted to a hospital. The girl was placed in a girls’ hostel. But, my father and his colleagues decided that she was not safe in the hostel as well. They contacted her relatives with her help.

She was soon married to a willing relative and the man was married to a distant widowed relative. The man did not know about her marriage because he was in the hospital. Soon, the man began to ask for his daughter. But, his colleagues told him that the girl had run away and the police were on the case, though the uniformed officers had not been contacted. The man began calling the police and the man’s colleagues told them to tell him the same lie.

This is not a unique case. Birth fathers and real brothers have impregnated girls as young as 13. We may not say much about other relatives like uncles. The girls are always in danger from that side.

Solution

One solution would be that the men should control the urge. It has to be a personal initiative. Only then can girls be spared. The rapists should be punished in such a way that they should fear to even touch girls. Today, such a case has been concluded in court and 3 of them got life imprisonment and 3 got away with 5 years. The son of the main culprit was released. This kind of punishment will not work. Several people will be ready to take on life imprisonment, if caught, for the thrill of a single day. In India, girls and married women are worshipped as kanyas and suhasinis. Even widowed ladies receive sakkesi pooja. There should be some severe punishment so that these people would not even think of rape.

Photo by Kat Jayne from Pexels