THEME 2: SEXUAL VIOLENCE & HARASSMENT IS A WAY TO DENY ACCESS AND AGENCY TO DALIT WOMEN
CASE STUDY: HOW SAVARNA FEAR AND TERROR SILENCES DALIT WOMEN
State: Chhattisgarh
Age of the survivor: 16 years
Date of the incident: November, 2019
The accused often visited his grandmother’s house in the same village as that of the survivor and used to abuse her regularly. On the night of the incident, the survivor had gone to the field to defecate. The accused caught hold of her, threatened her life and then proceeded to brutally rape her.
This kept happening every night since then. The accused would call the survivor out of her home, ask her to come to a silent corner of the field and sexually abuse her. He raped her 8 times, and threatened her life multiple times. The survivor was too scared to report the incidents to anyone.
When the survivor realised that she was pregnant, she informed the same to the accused. He forced her to take a pregnancy test, and when the result came positive, he was furious. The accused emotionally abused her and then forced her to terminate the pregnancy (with the help of his uncle).
At this point, the survivor narrated everything to her mother, following which they filed an FIR. The accused continued to harass and threaten the survivor, asking her to withdraw the case filed against him.
The FIR was registered only in April 2020 due to the pressure created by local NGOs, who also provided support and counselling services to the survivor and her family. However, the accused has not been arrested yet. There has been constant pressure to withdraw the case. The Inspector of Police who had officially filed the FIR had been transferred to a different jurisdiction. The threats by the family of the accused and harassment of the survivor and her family continues till date.