Treatment Of Women Still Needs To Be Addressed Globally — Two Men Given Absurd Sentence For Raping A 15-Year-Old Girl

The world has come a long way on the subject of the treatment of women. However, we still have a long way to go, especially in underdeveloped countries. Developed nations still have issues like equal pay and advancement in the workplace issues when it comes to the treatment of women. A recent study from Sienna College polled New York residents, and they found that 71 percent still feel these issues are a problem, as reported by the Citizen.

Though these issues are still important, a huge issue that needs to be addressed is the treatment of women internationally. We especially see this in the recent case of two thugs in India who raped a 15-year-old girl. On May 12, in the village of Zakopur, a young girl was sent to a neighbor’s house to gather water. On the way there, two men assaulted and raped her. They then threatened to kill her if she told anyone.

The 15-year-old girl told her family about the incident. The family then went out and confronted the family of the attackers. It was decided that the case would go before the village council (panchayat). According to the International Business Times, the sentence was ridiculous. The two were given what amounts to an $800 fine and sentenced to five slaps with a shoe, publicly. To the parents credit, they were furious, and they have taken the issue before the police, which they should have done in the first place.

This is another in a long line of examples of how far we still need to go internationally in the treatment of women. The better term should be the mistreatment of women. The Muse attacked this issue with statistics that will make your stomach turn.

“In Somalia, 95% of girls experience genital mutilation. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, 1,000 women are raped each day. Every day, 10 Brazilian women lose their lives to domestic violence.”

Since these numbers were given, one would hope to see things change, but unfortunately, this isn’t the case. In fact, there are villages that actually use rape as a form of corporal punishment. In January, 2014, a village council in India sentenced a woman to being gang-raped by 13 villagers for having a relationship with a man outside of the community. In this case, the police did get involved, but too little too late.

Treatment of women needs to continually be the subject in international meetings. Unfortuately, these few examples are just that. A few of too many examples where treatment of women doesn’t seem to be a top priority. The world is shrinking. We owe it to the girls of this world to stand up for them.

[Photo by CNN]