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Do rape victims need to be anonymous always?

  • "My daughter's name was Jyoti Singh and I am not ashamed to name her"
  • May be by revealing the name of the victim it can be used for the betterment or for a larger good – to serve as a lesson.  
Do rape victims need to be anonymous always

 

Jyoti Singh, a 23-year-old paramedical student was brutally sexually assaulted on December 16, and died 13 days later, triggering a massive public outrage. Among many, her spirit continued to live, and in tribute she was given the name 'Nirbhaya' or brave heart.

 

Posters were drawn, candle light vigils were held, protest marches in the name of Nirbhaya began to become the norm. But it took the same Nirbhaya’s mom to raise the curtain from our double standards. It was so easy to give another name, a fictionalised identity to the victim, almost like building an alternative universe and ignoring the reality.

 

Asha Devi, the girl’s mother said: My daughter's name was Jyoti Singh and I am not ashamed to name her. Those who commit heinous crimes like rape, their heads should hang in shame, not the victims or their families. You should take her name too." 

 

Another powerful reminder that victims also have a name and that just by calling them a survivor, a braveheart you are taking away the actuality and the gravity of the situation. 

 

In an interview to BBC, another victim of rape spoke saying, “My name is Suzette Jordan and I don't want to be known any longer as the victim of Calcutta's Park Street rape.” Jordan had since lived her life as the "Park Street rape victim", as many people had taken to calling her. 

 

No, that is not how these women will have their story end. If they have taken the guts to come out and complain to the police, to the media, then surely they do not want their names in hiding. 

 

 “I am tired of hiding my real identity. I am tired of this society's rules and regulations. I am tired of being made to feel ashamed. I am tired of feeling scared because I have been raped. Enough is enough!", Suzette told the BBC.

 

Enough of this anonymity, if barbarity can have a name, then so will courage. Courage will now be called Jyoti and Suzette.


I feel that the same rings true with the double standards of the media while dealing with the ‘assault’ of a Malayalee actress in Kerala last week. The actress, who complained of the assault, had her name already splashed on the Internet by various news media, while others chose to be on the safe side of the rape shield law and refer to her as the ‘Malayalee actress who was assaulted’. And yet, in some of these cases, you have her picture inside the article or references to her movies,  for good measure. You also have news channels running images of the actress in various happy poses, unmindful of the gravity of the case. It is this hypocrisy which needs to be addressed. Why, despite Jyoti's mother asking her daughter's name to be used, the media still prefers to call her Nirbhaya, Damini or the Braveheart?

 

The victim of rape or sexual assault, carries the candle of shame wherever she goes. Her identity suppressed as if it were a shame to know her, her reputation tarnished as if that is what made the criminals rape/assault her, in short, she pays for being raped, for being held against her will! It is the stigma that is attached to women who were assaulted that the retreat into a shell, unable to bear and listen to all the stories and rumours that will be circulated about them.

 

The rape shield law primarily was put into place in order to prevent minors from facing undue scrutiny and also extra measures are taken to ensure that victims recover and heal without public criticism. But in some cases this very facet is exploited to often discredit them.

 

Here’s what Section 228A in The Indian Penal Code says:

232 [228A. Disclosure of identity of the victim of certain offences etc.—

(1) Whoever prints or publishes the name or any matter which may make known the identity of any person against whom an offence under section 376, section 376A, section 376B, section 376C or section 376D is alleged or found to have been committed (hereafter in this section referred to as the victim) shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years and shall also be liable to fine.

(2) Nothing in sub-section (1) extends to any printing or publication of the name or any matter which may make known the identity of the victim if such printing or publication is—

(a) by or under the order in writing of the officer-in-charge of the police station or the police officer making the investigation into such offence acting in good faith for the purposes of such investigation; or

(b) by, or with the authorisation in writing of, the victim; or

(c) where the victim is dead or minor or of unsound mind, by, or with the authorisation in writing of, the next of kin of the victim: Provided that no such authorisation shall be given by the next of kin to anybody other than the chairman or the secretary, by whatever name called, of any recognised welfare institution or organisation. Explanation.—For the purposes of this sub-section, “recognised welfare institution or organisation” means a social welfare institution or organisation recognised in this behalf by the Central or State Government.

(3) Whoever prints or publishes any matter in relation to any proceeding before a court with respect to an offence referred to in sub-section (1) without the previous permission of such Court shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years and shall also be liable to fine.

 

Even if she is named or not, everywhere she goes, she either has to bear pitiful looks or words of scorn. Not to mention, some women are forced to end their lives through constant reliving of the traumatic incident by family, friends and co-workers. While a rapist may get a job and the tag of a reformed member of the society, the victim always remains the girl who was raped and the girl who should not be employed because of the ‘baggage’ she comes with.

 

Our mythology, movies all exist as records to prove that any time a woman is disrobed publically or sexually assaulted or raped, she then becomes the pariah of the society; the untouchable; an unclean person who has lost her ‘purity’.

 

Withholding her name is one of the most powerful ways of denying a victim a voice, because anonymity always gets lost. No one pays attention to the ‘girl that was raped’ but will stand up and regard with awe a Suzzette Jordan, who choose to be known not just as another victim of rape or assault. People have different coping mechanisms and this was hers.

 

 "Don't distort my voice, don't blur my picture," said Suzette in that BBC interview.
 

 

Like there are two sides to every coin. This too has another side to it, the legal and ethical side as well. It does not mean that media or all of us should use the names of such victims, after all it is the priority and right of the victim to be allowed a time to heal, to be seen just as another human being rather than walk around with a marker around their head. For some parents, unlike Jyoti’s, not naming their child in such incidents provides them with the thin blanket of  ‘privacy’.

 

All I am saying is that the media must choose its battles well and not cite the law and play safe. May be by revealing the name of the victim it can be used for the betterment or for a larger good – to serve as a lesson.  However, Indian history proves that even if a rape victim’s name is taken or not she still undergoes the trauma day in and day out.

 

In this case, the media can be given the benefit of the doubt since the actress, herself has not given anyone the consent to use her name but it is being used as an example to prove that if a celebrity like her is not safe, then how can an ordinary woman in the city be.

 

So is the media wise in using the anonymity shield? Let us know...

 

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