{Dilip's essays} "Sexual assault is sexual assault,
skin or no skin
Rarely have I found myself shaking with anger, frustration and worry as
much as I did after reading news about a recent court judgement."
Comment:
Dear Dilip:
Not many people will disagree withyour outrage and frustration.
More so if you consider that thesubject judgment was rendered by a female
judge.
A somewhat relevant commentthat I want to add, is that based on information
freely available, there werein the year 1918 over 37 million more males than
females in India andprobably the same imbalance prevailed in Goa. Future
predictions are for aratio of 108 males to 100 females at birth.
Many causes have been identified forthis imbalance but the most likely is the
widespread availability ofinformation on the gender of the unborn babies and
the availability ofselective abortions.
So, this is a relatively recentphenomenon and the generation impacted by these
practices is just now reaching primereproductive age.
This skewed gender ratio has increasedinstances of sexual assaults by 127%
according to some estimates.
In many villages in India it hasbecome extremely difficult for males to find
brides.
By the way the crisis in China is alittle more serious than the one in India
because of their 1 child -2 child policies.So, a few solutions are being
debated there.
In 2019 one economicsprofessor at Shanghai’s Fudan University offered up a
novel proposal to solveChina’s very serious gender imbalance: polyandry – women
having multiplehusbands. This was not accepted because it seemed to lead to
quasislave status for women. There was another proposal to legalize
prostitution andthis too was rejected. But apparently those who can afford it,
are importingbrides from Vietnam, Korea and other neighboring countries.
It does not appear that in Indiathis gender imbalance problem has received any
official attention orrecognition. But sexual assaults in India seem to be
increasing, and aregetting some attention.
Regards,
E.
