There is widespread frustration and deep concern regarding the persistent and alarming issue of sexual violence against women in India. Many commenters express fear for women's safety, share personal experiences of trauma, and call for systemic reforms alongside stricter law enforcement. While a few acknowledge efforts to raise awareness, the overwhelming sentiment remains negative, fueled by anger over inadequate governmental responses and cultural normalization of violence. The need for urgent action and change is emphasized strongly across the board.

Indian Government

Law Enforcement

Society/Culture

International Community

Two things can be true at once, India can be getting unfair attention, yet also have serious issues. For instance, roughly 1/5 sexual violence cases result in a conviction. It's estimated that women in Indian have the lowest reporting rate in the world due to how the justice system treats these crimes. 


In fact all organized societies have these issues, and all of them kind of shrug their shoulders and seem to not treat them seriously.

Blairians

My experience is limited in that all I can say is that I lived in Delhi for almost a year. Whether or not it is "overstated" is probably a subjective matter but, at least when I was there, which was about 15 years ago now, it was a problem. I saw it many times with my own eyes. Not rapes obviously but just pretty unpleasant behaviour. Either borderline or not even borderline harassment pretty openly. 

My collegue and I are both white British and his sister and her friend visited for 3 weeks. It was essentially impossible to go out into the street with them without very quickly, groups of young men forming to follow us around, try to take pictures and make comments. My collegue and I are relatively large guys and dispersing these crowds for any periods of time involved being quite aggressive. Anything less and they would stop for a few minutes and then just carry on. I do not know how much worse they may have gotten had we not been there, but I am glad we decided that we should not let them go out wandering alone because I am not as confident as I would have needed to be that they would be safe. 

It's a shame really, because for the very most part I \*loved\* India and it's people. I'm so glad I got to experience it. Also, if the counter argument here is, "there are other countries where the girls would have been equally or more unsafe", I am sure that is the case, but I don't think the potential danger to women and girls is "vastly overstated due to racism". Sorry. I might have suspected you were right had I not seen some of the problem myself and also had conversations with my young, female, Indian team members about some of their tricky experiences with 'eve-teasing' and that escalating.

hitanthrope

&gt;Let’s look at the data. According to the World Population Review and other international sources, South Africa has the highest reported rape rate in the world—over 132 per 100,000 people, compared to 1.8 per 100,000 in India. In some surveys, 1 in 4 South African men admitted to committing rape. These numbers are staggering. And yet, for some reason, the global media rarely refers to South Africa as the “rape capital of the world.” That label, fairly or unfairly, is often reserved for India.

I mean, I just googled "rape capital" and it gave me a bunch of articles about South Africa, and then Congo.

So, this might just be a search bubble issue on your part.

10ebbor10

Comparing your personal experiences in Baltimore to your personal experiences while vacationing in India seems like a poor way to come to this conclusion.

Physical_Stop851

So is your view that there are other places with equal or worse sexual abuse problems? Even if so, what does that change for India? I literally have not encountered a single Indian woman who was not absolutely terrified of the risks there. Not one.

Call-Me-Portia

It's possible that your samples of American and Indian life are biased. Of course, I cant know the personal circumstances of your family but on average, when people immigrate via some merit-based program instead of a humanitarian program that lets everyone in, the immigrants tend to be from the more successful parts of their home society. Thus, when going back to see thd old country, they avoid the parallel of inner-city Baltimore of that country, which to some extent exists in most places. 

I think more evidence is needed than just personal experience in this case.

curiouslyjake

If you're not an Indian woman.

Your observation is baseless and data less. 

And your opinion of sexual assault that happens in india or America otherwise is not valued. 

Because you are never going to experience sexual assault neither in india nor in USA.

sinji-gOaT1457

Considering that martial rape is still legal in India, I'd say that the sexual abuse cases in India are still very much at large (even if the Indian government doesn't consider it that way).

ladygrinningsoul1973

Literally every indian woman ive met has said otherwise. So i believe you are dead wrong.

SwagginOnADragon69

I think a big part of that stereotype came from early social media days, where pretty much every woman received tons of creepy messages and comments from Indian men. It pretty quickly became a running joke, and that paired with the common stories of women tourists being groped in India, it got a reputation. It’s probably true that India is not among the worst countries when it comes to sexual violence, though it’s tough to tell from statistics due to underreporting and differences in what counts as sexual violence from country to country. But that reputation didn’t come from statistics, it came from early social media and stories spread through word of mouth.

New_General3939

First, unless I search for "rape capital of world India", the top results are Democratic Republic of the Congo or South Africa. 

Second, yes, if you look at the rates of sexual violence, there are more rapes reported in South Africa per capita than in India. But, it is also important to look at the stats that show that a woman is a victim of violence every three [minutes](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4216486/) in India. The comparison to South Africa and saying that it is worse there just serves to shift focus and is whataboutism. Domestic violence and gender-based violence should be addressed everywhere.

Third, it is inaccurate, at best, to compare your experiences of living in a city with visiting a city. It's more likely that you will experience a crime in a city if you are there longer. That's just simple math.

CaptainMalForever

India has a caste system. That's not racism, that's institutional degradation of human life.

93didthistome

I don’t think the reason people criticize India is because criticizing Pakistan would be islamophobic. Europe has no problem being Islamophobic last I checked, from all the protests this past year. I think it’s because India has a much much larger population and Indian immigration is also a lot more prominent worldwide than Pakistani immigration. In Canada, for example, they’re the largest immigrant group by far.

lawreed

Spousal rape is legal in India.  So of course there is under reporting.

It’s interesting that you say look at the data, then talk about your personal feelings of being unsafe in urban US cities (just say because you see Black people).  Why the switch from data to feelings and sexual assaults to general violence?

India is portrayed negatively, because people have talked to Indian women and they see videos of public rapes where bystanders, instead of trying to stop a rape on a bus, join in.

ericbythebay

I’m extremely ignorant on this topic but from what I hear the issue isn’t so much rape as it is things like stalking, groping and harassment especially in rural areas. I definitely agree that this is over exaggerated due to anti south Asian bias

I mostly wanted to talk about your point on the diaspora because it contributes the model minority myth. Rural farmers in Tamil Nadu are not booking flights and getting visas to the United States or other wealthy countries. Even if diaspora communities  are relatively economically poor, they still tend to be among the most educated members of their society which is extremely valuable human capital. In the same way south Asians are not inherently more prone to sexual assault, they are also not inherently more prone to be successful.  Both of these are just examples of selection bias. South Asians like everyone else are human beings. Trying to essentialize people based on their ethnicity I would say is the problem 

Km15u

I wouldn't say it is due to racism. I would attribute it to access.


The reputation of India comes largely from the fact that they are a large English speaking population. Therefore, their news stories are in English, and the billion-plus audience causes local stories to become global. Therefore sensational stories are just more likely to reach the US. 


Even though China and India are similar in populations, I hear a lot more internal news about India than I do about China.


It's the same reason why non-Americans hear about mass shootings and think the US is a warzone.

StobbstheTiger

Whether India is the rape capital of the world or that honor is held elsewhere, the facts remain about the way women are largely regarded - as inferior to men - their freedom to walk the streets without harassment or assault, the acceptance of rape by men, and the totally inadequate investigation and prosecution of sexual assaults. Comparison to other countries with extremely high rates of rape doesn't make India's situation any less egregious. The statistics dont lie. The culture and legal system are wholly unacceptable with regard to the treatment of women.

Stella-Bella7

This is largely true.

I think in the West India had a largely positive image for a variety of reasons, all basically stereotypes.  Yoga and dharmic spirituality in general became very popular starting in the 1960s.  Early Indian immigrants to the US and Canada were seen as hard working and educated (creating an inaccurate stereotype that the general population of India is highly educated).  Although it has seen political violence, India was seen as a nation that had overcome colonial rule and achieved independence in an at least partly non-violent way.  Beginning in the late 1960s, an association between Islam and terrorism emerged (although in reality terrorist groups were mainly secular until the 1990s); this caused sympathy for Hinduism in India.  And in general, India has had a reputation in the West as a mysterious land of adventure and legend since ancient times.

However, in recent years, a number of things have damaged the reputation of India.  I'm not suggesting any of this is fair, just noting what seems to be.  The Modi government is internationally unpopular.  Yoga guru sexual harassment scandals are a trivial issue in most ways but struck at the credibility of India as a source of spiritual wisdom.  Children Indian immigrants in the West like Vivek Ramaswamy have become associated with more ambivalent "tech bro" images and right wing politics in some cases, than their parents, who were mainly upper middle class professionals or small business operators.  And the internet in general has simply exposed people to a more realistic view of India and the internal problems it struggles with.  EDIT - I almost forgot the biggest one of all, the prolifterion of cell phone and online scams.  All of this is grounded in stereotypes as well of course.

Thus we see "overcorrection" of stereotypes.  The magical land of George Harrison's guru is now the criticized land of supposedly excessive sexual harassment.

One thing we see in real life and on Reddit is that once people form a bias, it gives them psychological pleasure and they resist nuance.  So you're not going to get anyone on Reddit to "admit" that the rate of sexual assault in India, or state of women's rights in India, while both need to be improved, are not particularly bad by international standards, which is not the same thing as saying they are good, or similar to the standards of high income areas in developed nations.

h_lance

You make some excellent points.  Here's another way of looking at it. 

You're implying not everywhere is equal. You're implying not all cultures are equal. I agree with that, I think most people do. 

There are dozens of factors that play a role in how ideal a society is. Most of which are trackable data points.  

There are some factors everyone agrees on.  For instance, quality education is better than subpar education. 

But there are some factors that people disagree on. Like which religion is the most ideal.

But for the most part, we could create a list, and rank societies from most ideal to least ideal, and continuously revise the data to stay current. As societies change, the data would reflect whether those changes were positive, or negative. 

So let's picture that list.  We could even break it down by cities, not just countries.  We could get as precise as we want.  And if we did that, we'd start to see clear patterns. 

And that's exactly why we don't have those lists.  There are a lot of people that do not want to see who's always at the bottom, and who's always at the top.  Those people put a lot of effort into hiding the data. 

And there are other groups that would rather have the data, even if it's damning to their society.  India is one of those. You guys want the data, so you know what to fix. You don't care about the image, you care about results. So you see your society discussed as statistics more than other societies.

CaptainONaps

&gt;discrepancy in how India is portrayed compared to other countries


What are your actual examples of this discrepancy? 


Who are you actually talking about? 


&gt;Let’s look at the data


Can you cite your source directly for this data? I'm seeing very mixed rates and statistics for this. 


Wikipedia puts the UK at the top of the list but only has data from India since 2013.


Then of course we have to recognise what counts as rape, what's reported etc, the numbers will be skewed according to those cultural factors. 


For example an area of North London has very low reporting rates but not due to low rates but due to community pressure and suppression of reports. 

Dry_Bumblebee1111

[deleted]

It is not overstated but understated. Before I travelled to Banglore, I was said that it was cleaner and safer than bad states in India.   


I stayed around two weeks. I rode in small three wheel vehicle twice. And, each time, there were transgender trying to touch me and my friends during jam. I was lucky I was in middle and opposite side both time.  


Just imagine what would have happened to girls? And, what if itbwas secluded place?   


Never travel alone to India. Also, never get out alone when going somewhere.

MyraidChickenSlayer

Hey Patel....
Quit being butthurt because the country of your parents has an abysmal record when it comes to sexual assault on women. 
 I grew up in India. It's a pretty sexist society. 
 Thoroughly accepting of nauseatingly patronizing sexist behavior. 
The racism is just as bad. 

Professional_Rock821

How to be bigoted while crying about how other people view India. You couldn’t make it up…

This guy literally spreads disinformation and hate about other cultures but doesn’t like his own country of origin being focused on. Then it’s just information warfare….

The contradictions are wild…

Upwardcurve123

It's a very patriarchal country so convictions for rapists are already low so since they imagine Rapists would just file counter cases against their victims.

(Not all Feminists are against those laws merely "some", tbh we are just in dire need of a better judiciary)

Aggravating_Bed_8155

IIRC, men have way more power than women in the courts, and India recently made marital rape illegal, so women are afraid that men will use that as an way to punish disobedient wives, or get rid of wives they no longer want to be married to without having to go through a divorce.

KaliTheCat

India is complex and very different from the west. 

Some Indian feminists think that changing rape laws will erode female protections. Many parts of India are deeply patriarchal, especially outside big cities or in place like UP.  Women’s voices aren’t taken remotely seriously, so the state crafted very specific and strong rape laws so that judges are forced to take their assaults seriously. Feminists like flavia Agnes (the only one ive read that is pro biased laws) isn’t against men or trans people having rape laws, she just thinks due to the nature of India women need specific laws. It’s very much about legalese and above my head culturally and law wise. 

There’s also feminists that argue the other way though. One of my Indian students recently wrote a current events essay on Chayanika Shah, and she’s openly in favor of gender neutral rape laws. Her background is in lgtbq activism so this makes sense. 

So in conclusion id say feminists in India that support gender specific rape laws are doing it as a necessary evil to combat the deeply patriarchal culture in the country, and that there are also Indian feminists that feel the opposite. 

I’m not Indian and not an expert, but I did go down this rabbit hole a few months ago so have many thoughts on India and rape.

It’s kind of like DEI hiring except with rape laws.

TallTacoTuesdayz

Fear of misuse. Misogynists have a lot more legal power in India than in the USA. They are worried that the laws will be weaponized, and rapists and misogynists will use false reports to attack women who do not submit to their authority

Some argue that other genders can already seek legal remedy under different sections of Indian law. They propose strengthening those protections separately rather than changing the definition of rape itself. There is also a fear of misuse - which I think is a valid fear. 

IMO the debate isn’t about denying male/LGBTQ+ victims justice, it’s about ensuring that legal reforms **reflect the realities of Indian society &amp; do not inadvertently reinforce existing inequalities.**

sewerbeauty

In an ideal world we could have gender neutral rape laws but in the real world in India there’s a rape reported every [16 minutes](https://www.firstpost.com/explainers/a-rape-every-16-minutes-the-shocking-numbers-on-crimes-against-women-in-india-13804414.html). Mind you these are the reported ones. A larger % of rapes are not reported because they are not illegal (like marital rape) or due to victim shaming and victim sexualising ( because she’s been raped and is considered that her body can now be used for anyone’s pleasure for free).

With all that in mind, it makes sense to have at least rape laws focusing on protecting women.

DesiCodeSerpent


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&gt;asks women not to travel alone

Can't even argue with that.

vaibhavwth22

Amarika bolta tha kya ho tum, aaj hum bolte he tu kya he be

DdOS_DoOM

Honestly, even one tourist woman being sexually harassed is unacceptable, and we have had multiple cases of truly extreme degrees over only a few years.  This is not even debatable with the "Not all indians" rhetoric because even one case is unacceptable. But to play the devils advocate here, other countries like Egypt, Pakistan, Brazil even US all have similar issues but get drowned out due to the sheer increase in frequency that having a billion+ people bring. To clarify i am not supporting any of these behaviors and I am not trying to do whataboutism, I just think combined with the very real and serious issue there is political and race based posturing happening too.

isnortmiloforsex

queen-elizabeths-pp

Honestly, yeah, good move. It’s not safe here

-Purple-turtle-

Finally we get the recognition we deserve.

Piratehitch

InstructionOk1087

Took them way too long to update the advisory.

Mr_Anderson_48

I’m a female and have a trip planned to Delhi from the USA😭😭😭😭

CheesecakeNo5068

Doland saar why saar? V r sooperpaawar saar. Isssreel, USA and Bharat sooperpaawar brothers saar. Remov da notice saar. Saar 99.9% NASA scienteez indian saar.

No-Lawfulness9178

Can’t just ignore the US advisory, India for women is not a safe place yet. Can we say that it’s safe with confidence in a 100 years?!

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/india-travel-advisory.html

According-Promise392

potterharrypotter1

Ill_Associate4839

BaconGarden

Sukooonn

THEGHOST_INN

Cant argue with that but in retaliation, India must issue travel advisory to its citizens for theft, arson, public unrest, shootings , and profiling.

No-Introduction-5815

RewardNew8047

TBF it was always there. Modi just added moral police and gaurakshaks into the mix

Medical_Clothes

Honestly, with how unsafe some places can be, it’s risky for women to travel alone in India especially white woman

Darkrifter04

Tengakola

Phul sapport saar usa israel india frndss saar

Most-Repair-8198

Being an Indian American is... complicated... right now

Atherutistgeekzombie

Who are we kidding, it's fair enough.

Also, it was an issue before Modi. Be real.

ramario281

This is tactics for trade tarriff and to sit modi and munir for at table.. people should not fall for this

kalzbug

Great advice, other countries should also start implementing 

largeapple001

97bdul

Not entirely untrue. Just go and read the stories in the travel forum.

Pharmacologist72

Pakistani did its job with the Nobel prize shit &amp; where's the beginning

hunter125555

Trump ke saath kaahe ki diplomacy. Baniya buddhi hai..abhi kuch major deal sign karlo..sab reverse!

vjzcool

"Suddenly"! The ToIletpaper is pretending to not understand how government bureaucracies work in order to spin the news of degradation of law and order in this country under the rule of orange rapist-murderer terrorists having reached a point where the IS government has woken up. 

charavaka

HEY THAT BITCH WITH THE NAME CRIFTIN ISNT  HERE NOW 

HES FINALLY BEEN SHUT IN HIS ROOM BY HIS MAMA

Xskull1968

Do they have some extra intel?
Are we gonna face some serious backlash from our "friendly" neighbor?

They did the same in afghanistan before that happened. 

Our govt should take this seriously and work on our security more.

Psychological-Art131

Suddenly? I'd say it took them long enough

orionflax

vizot

I have travelled solo across many places in India.  Maybe I'm.an Indian woman but still , torusit cities are mostly safe.Just avoid UP side

Naive-Double-7589

ironsandbender

India number of rapes is reducing. But advisory says it is growing. A misinformation.

India already has low rape rate on per million basis compared to other countries. But leftists and islamists hype up numbers and do cherry picking of incidents to show the country in bad light, the latter is a misleading logical fallacy. Also the number of rapes have reduced in India in the last 10 years as per data:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/632493/reported-rape-cases-india/

Critifin

Modi rule is bad, but has nothing to do with this barbarity. Remember Nirbhaya? Yeah, happened before Modi.

This issue goes deeper, and points to the terrible state of our society. Nobody seems to be working to fix it either.

ReasonAndHumanismIN

raghav3303

This is necessary. Good on the US to protect it's traveling women. Other countries should follow suit

Ashwinrao

I will be honest I love my country but US wale are speaking true

CharmingMonstrosity

First is absolutely true. Second is somewhat true. Third is debatable.

Disastrous-Potato407

They aint wrong tho lol, Indian women are not safe, forget foreigners

Glittering-Wolf2643

michaelloda9

Now that United States is officially at a bitter stand against India,we should come forward and fully support Palestine and Iran.
Let humanity be India's Stand.

Upset_Attention7655

Safer than the US itself, but this is still partially correct.

SignificanceFar487

According to govt surveys, NHFS of india like 5 are done and for a separate US, India is actually much safer.

US has about 1 in 5 aka 20% of women ever or attempted rape 

https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics

Whereas NHFS says only 6% of women in 18-49 have ever been sexually assaulted (rape is a part of the definition)

https://imgur.com/a/ps0apbK

This is from NHFS 5. NHFS 4 puts the rate in 5.8% with a different sample and well within the error range.

thedarkracer

Yep, shame on him for making our congress utopia into the state it is today.

Lost_Cartographer66

us isn't the best country for women either, though better than india.

CryptoTaxIsTooHigh

The great cinema tradition of nameless, dispensable, victims, thrives on. No wonder 80% of homicide victims are men and certainly not women.

Current_Finding_4066

Even rape. Men cannot be raped nor be domestically abused by women according to law. There is no provision under the law for this. India's laws are the breeding ground for misandry and Indian women who call them feminists only care about women getting raped not men. They won't speak against other shitty women or shitty laws because they benefit from them. India is not the place to get settled down.

nimish98

&gt;So proud to be a son of India.

no lol

Responsible-Plant573

Lol .. isn’t it easy to say “violence against humans is punishable”. 

We need to be as picky as women .. like how they made everything about gender and got the reforms , norms adjusted accordingly. Not saying it’s good or bad. But they succeeded 

Stop paying for these useless streaming subscriptions, they are made to cater only a section of audience and not for us. Don’t pay them money. Money is power .. you’re paying money to get humiliated.

Bring awareness.. which you’re already doing it and thanks for taking the initiative. More and more people need to know how this society treats men. We need to be more defensive around these matters .. it’s fine. If we just let it go .. they will make it even difficult for us.

Don’t suffer along the process … Be smart. If you have to have to watch the movie for any reason. You will most likely find free alternatives in India 😉.

SubstantialMajor2798

OP, **even India’s ancient epic stories have this bias**. When Indra desiring Ahalya, disguised himself as her husband &amp; deceived her into intimacy, he was cursed with a thousand vaginas on his body - a grotesque, humiliating punishment. 

What about her? In some versions, she consented knowingly but overall was either spiritually excused or seen as a victim and granted redemption.
 
Men are punished to set an example. Women are excused to protect a narrative. **Some things haven’t changed in 7,000 years**.

SquaredAndRooted

And this is why feminism destroys anything it touches.  

PoppyJoppy

Because the law doesn't care about male victims, even when a woman assaults a man, he or thry makes it about how she's worse off.

Just look at the situation in Ukraine. Men are fighting and dying in the war, but the media can't stop talking about how women are the ones who are suffering the most through it.

Late-Hat-9144

Gengis-Naan

"Crimes reported". It's not a good measure of crimes against women. It doesn't tell us whether such crimes are increasing or decreasing. But it's a fair measure of confidence women (and families) have on state institutions to do something about gender violence.

mormegil1

The year 2020 shows a decrease in crime maybe from strangers but I'm sure there must be a severe spike in DV, SA by family. 

Need more such reports and research to improve.

DrkNobody

Isn't this good ? Cause we are seeing more crimes being reported?


Reason why kerela is on top of a lot of crimes cause it's a reported a lot

Rise of reports being registered, not rise of crime..

Aaditya_AJ

We really are a nation full of misogynists.....it's a hard truth and we need to face it sadly

RemoteOriginal538

The fact that something like Nirbhaya happened over a decade ago and rape is still as common as it was then says enough. Things will only get worse. Politicians are happy to distribute 2000 per month to all women but not enforce measures to prevent rapes. There's no value of human life in India.

aryan_420

I would see it as reporting rate going up

violetbeast

Fake claims and false accusations have also increased. 
Gotta work on both issues

VixorGen

This includes only those that are reported..

Atuisht

Stats about crime against women are off by more than 50%. Maximum of the petty crimes are never reported. Maximum of sexual harrasment crime also are never reported.

The data show doesn't show the actual status.

usarap

The Supreme Court of India expressed its concern over the alarming frequency of sexual violence against women, urging for effective protective measures and reforms.

Sexual Violence Against Women in India

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