Rape Suspects In India Possibly Face Death Penalty
MAX FOSTER, HOST: Tonight on Connect the World, with their fate fast tracked through the courts, five men are charged with a brutal murder that has left India demanding justice.</s>ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN London this is Connect the world.</s>FOSTER: The shocking gang rape of a 23 year old woman has caused the global outcry. Tonight, why many victims across the world are still too afraid to speak out. Also this hour, a green card from Russia with love for the French actor who saw red over his taxes. And...</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ...variable to be needed.</s>FOSTER: How a form of autism is helping these job seekers find work. Well, it's a case that has horrified and angered many not just in India, but around the world. Indian police have now formally charged five men over the gang rape of a young woman who later died. Sumnima Udas joins us from New Delhi with the very latest -- Sumnima.</s>SUMNIMA UDAS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Max, that's right. The -- the Delhi police has basically submitted its charge sheet and they've charged five of the six suspects, charges of murder, rape and abduction among other things. And the sixth suspect is actually supposedly a juvenile, about 17 years old, that he will be tried at a separate court. Now those five suspects, if convicted, face a maximum charge of the death penalty -- or maximum punishment the death penalty. And as you know, this is exactly what a lot of these protesters have been protesting for the past two weeks, braving the cold, have been demanding. It's also exactly what the father of the victim has been demanding. Rape, as you know, is very common in India. It's reported that there is a rape every 20 minutes in this country, but sometimes it does take one incident to galvanize a society and inspire change. And this certainly seems to be that watershed moment.</s>UDAS: They called it the black day to remember the 22 year old victim of last month's gang rape and to demand protection for women in a country where rape is so common it frequently goes unreported. Students marching through New Delhi, vowing that the brutal death of one of their own will not be forgotten. A separate protest by a group of lawyers who say that neither the police nor the courts take violence against women seriously. They say they won't defend the five men who now stand accused of both gang rape and murder. Protesters and the victim's father are demanding the death penalty for alleged attackers. Confronted by public outrage, India's chief justice has set up a fast track court to deal with a back log of sexual offenses, but legal experts say a massive overhaul of India's old laws is needed.</s>KIRTI SINGH, SUPREME COURT LAWYER: Look at the archaic language that is used in our penal code. It was made in 1861. And we still haven't changed it.</s>UDAS: Campaigners here sense a change in the national mood, so does the U.S. activist, Eve Ensler who is in India/</s>EVE ENSLER, ACTIVIST: I really believe this is going to be the catalyst not only for India, but for an entire world where sexual violence is rampant.</s>UDAS: There's also a fierce debate about whether rape itself should carry the death penalty with some officials saying it should.</s>SINGH: We don't even have a (inaudible) in this country. Our laws as yet don't define, you know, sexual assault adequately.</s>UDAS: But human rights groups and some lawyers oppose making rape a capital crime. They say, instead, the focus needs to be on how doctors, prosecutors, judges, and the police treat sexual violence in India. That will demand massive reform to a legal system that is one of the slowest and most inefficient in the world.</s>UDAS: Now there were some questions as to whether those five suspects will be given a fair trial, especially after some of those lawyers refused to defend them or act in their defense, but the court has said that they will be appointing another lawyer and that the trial will begin this weekend -- Max.</s>FOSTER: Sumnima, thank you very much indeed. Well, this case has lead to some deep soul searching in India with protests and vigils held almost daily since the horrific attack. Thousands of miles away in London, an Indian community is also holding prayers to remember the victim and call for change.</s>ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They don't know her real name and they had never seen her face, but people in this Indian community in London are deeply grieving her death. To them, she's known as Domini (ph), or lightning in Hindi.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What shall I say? It's just like a daughter? We lost our own daughter and not (inaudible) is very bad.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's not about being a sister or family, is it? It's about being a woman at the end of the day and you just -- it's not acceptable what's happened to her?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are the same community. You know, it's not - - you know, we live in a global community right now. And if we just -- if we didn't -- India is in a bubble and it doesn't affect us, that's really stupid thinking. We are affected by this case just as much as the people in India.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on guys get up and take a stand. Simple as that. Because it's us, should have taken a stand a long time back.</s>FOSTER: Well, rape is of course a global horror. It can happen anywhere within any society, but it's not easy to compare the rapes. Most stats are based on reported rape, the actual figures are usually a lot higher. What that means is that conviction rates can be misleading too. One of the reasons why many women don't report rape is so short stigma. Many feel constrained by ingrained cultural attitudes holding that women who are raped are not victims, but somehow guilty of inciting the attack. And often they can become completely ostracized from society. In extreme cases, some women feel forced to marry their attacker to restore their so- called honor. You may remember the case of Gulnaz (ph) in Afghanistan who was jailed for adultery after a married relative raped her after an international outcry, Gulnaz (ph) was freed after serving two years, though, of her sentence. For more on the social stigma of rape, which is also a problem in the west to a certain degree, I'm joined now from New York by Zainab Salbi, founder of Women for Women International. You may remember that last year Zainab traveled with CNN's Freedom Project to investigate sex trafficking in India. Do you manage to work out as best you can what this stigma is if we can generalize across the globe?</s>ZAINAB SALBI, WOMEN FOR WOMEN INTERNATIONAL: Well, of course. Well, the most important thing to understand it's -- this is a very personal, intimate act of violence. So to start with it's actually not easy for any women, nor any man to speak about rape. It's such an intimate, very private thing that takes something that as sacred as sexual acts and make it in a very violent way. So to start with it's really not easy. The second part is as you mentioned earlier that women are often the ones who are blamed for the rape. In the case of the Indian woman, the first statement the police commander said the next day is that women should avoid being out at night or taking public buses at night. The women are often the ones who are blamed rather than actually putting the blame that men should stop raping. So that's the second part is you -- and the third part of it is that people are actually confused what to do with it. In the case of Tunisian woman who was recently raped by three police - - three police forces, or three policemen in Tunisia a few months ago, she did not know how to say to her family because of their own confusion. She did not know how to speak with them about it. And they were very confused when they eventually learned about it. Most importantly -- and most importantly it is the fact that is her who is blamed. So she carries the honor, she carries the blame. And so it's very confusing. There is not much support system for the women to speak about her rape.</s>FOSTER: So has India been exposed as a country where this is a particular problem? Obviously there's a stigma in all countries, but in India you have the situation where they're not necessarily seen as victims these victims.</s>SALBI: Well, in India -- India is no different in my opinion than any other country. In Brazil, one every -- one woman is raped every 21 seconds. In America, about 18 million women are raped every year. So India is no special exception. India have a lot of cases of not only rape in this case, it's a college student, but they actually have a lot of cases of trafficking against women. 80 percent of the 800,000 people who are trafficked every year are women. And most of them are trafficked for sexual exploitation.</s>FOSTER: I was just going to...</s>SALBI: So India is no different in that.</s>FOSTER: I want to put one of our iReporters in the comments from an iReporter to you, because interesting comments. Meera Vijayann is a young woman living in Bangalore and felt compelled to speak.</s>MEERA VIJAYANN, IREPORTER: Sexual violence is something women here face every single day. Chauvinism is inherent in (inaudible) society. And it's bound to have such consequences. It's not just men alone who perpetrate these biases, it's women as well. This girl could have been me, it could have been any of my friends. And no one would have taken us seriously. Most politicians in India have rape charges against them. Most policemen view rape victims as perpetrators. So what change do millions of girls like me have when it comes to finding justice?</s>FOSTER: She's basically saying, isn't she, that chauvinism is inherent in a deeply patriarchal society. It's not a male-female issue for her.</s>SALBI: It's not a male-female issue, there are lots of actually men who are also getting raped, but men are the number one violators of sexual violence whether it is marital rape as in my case in my 20s or whether it is family rape as in the cases of many children who are raped in the world by either their fathers or family members, or it is in a stranger's rape as in the case of the college student who recently died in India. Men are in the number one reasons why rape occurs, though men are also victims of rape in smaller quantities, but still in a very serious numbers in here. Now we need to change the discussions about rape. Instead of blaming the women for it -- don't dress up like this, don't go at night, carry pepper spray with you, we need to actually really rise up in a serious way and have a discussion with men. Real men don't rape. Good men don't rape. And we need more and more men to speak up against violence against women as men, not only to protect women, but to actually protect the meaning of a real man, which is a good man is not a rapist. And that's a transformation we need to change actually across cultures from the Middle East to Africa to Asia to Latin America and the U.S. and Western Europe as well. That phenomena of the women being blamed is still a global phenomena and we need to switch that discussion to have men be more responsible for committing such acts.</s>FOSTER: Zainab Salbi of Women for Women International. Thank you very much indeed for joining us on the program. Still to come, an emotional return for survivors of an elementary school massacre. Hundreds of children had to face their fears and head back to class. We'll have a live report for you from Connecticut. Also, Pakistani officials say U.S. drone strikes have killed a Taliban commander who have made peace with the government in Islamabad. And a German company's innovative program employing adults with Asperger's. All that and much more when Connect the World continues.