CHENNAI: India’s chief justice is under pressure to resign after asking a man accused of rape whether he would marry the complainant — sparking outrage and concern that his words could legitimize the notion that rapists can make amends by marrying their victims.
Chief Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde posed the question during the bail hearing of a government employee who is accused of stalking, threatening and repeatedly raping a distant schoolgirl relative over a two-year period.
Brinda Adige, a women’s and children’s rights activist, said she was “furious” over Bobde’s suggestion, fearing lower courts might now be more willing to consider marriage offers floated by defense lawyers in rape cases.
“This idea of marrying the rapist was always whispered in the corridors and not spoken about loudly. Now that it has been said aloud, how it will be used across the judiciary and by (those) accused is a terrifying thought,” she said.
“People approach courts for justice and not to listen to the petty mindedness of judges.”
This week’s incident has also fueled debate about India’s progress on tackling high rates of sexual violence nearly a decade since the gang rape and murder of a student on a bus shocked the nation.
Almost 34,000 rapes were reported in 2018, about the same as the previous year, and just over 85% led to charges and 27% to convictions, according to government crime data.
In an open letter demanding Bobde’s resignation, thousands of people and women’s rights organizations said his remark would “lead to the further silencing of girls and women, a process that took decades to break.”
“Your continued presence as CJI (Chief Justice of India) puts every woman in India in danger. It sends a message to young girls that their dignity and autonomy are of no value,” the letter said.
Lawyers said Bobde’s comment could threaten a precedent set by the Supreme Court in 2013 when it said “rape is not a matter for the parties to compromise and settle” — seeking to stamp out a notion that persists in many segments of Indian society.
“The rule of law is at stake here,” said lawyer D Gita, who practices in the Madras High Court.
“How will a woman feel that she will get a fair hearing or even justice if the court echoes a sentiment that is often heard within families and society. The remarks have upturned the legal apple cart and sent a terrible signal to the lower judiciary.”
Suman Chakravarti, another lawyer, has argued in many cases against the “marry your rapist ploy,” which defense attorneys representing rape defendants sometimes use in a bid for leniency from judges.
In July, a year after Catholic priest Robin Vadakkumchery, 52, was jailed for 20 years for raping a minor, he asked Kerala High Court to grant him bail — saying he wanted to marry the girl and take care of the child she conceived.
“The fact that he would make such a suggestion in itself was outrageous,” Chakravarti, who was the public prosecutor in the Vadakkumchery case, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“This is a shortcut method we often see to escape this serious crime,” he added.
The court denied Vadakkumchery’s application, but Chakravarti said vigilance was necessary to ensure the legal system does not accept the so-called marriage ploy.
There have been numerous cases of rape victims forced or pressured to marry their attackers by relatives or members of traditional panchayats, which serve as village courts, said Jacqui Hunt, director of rights group Equality Now’s Eurasia Office.
“Judges, tasked with upholding constitutional rights and values, are the last people who should champion such marriages,” Hunt said in emailed comments.
India’s top judge urged to quit for suggesting rape defendant marry victim
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India’s top judge urged to quit for suggesting rape defendant marry victim
- Bobde posed the question during the bail hearing of an employee who is accused of repeatedly raping a schoolgirl relative
- This week’s incident has also fueled debate about India’s progress on tackling high rates of sexual violence
DHL cargo plane crashes into a house in Lithuania, killing at least 1
- The Lithuanian airport authority identified the aircraft as a “DHL cargo plane
VILNIUS: A DHL cargo plane crashed into a house Monday morning near the Lithuanian capital, killing at least one person.
Lithuanian’s public broadcaster LRT, quoting an emergency official, said two people had been taken to the hospital after the crash, and one was later pronounced dead. LRT said the aircraft smashed into a two-story home near the airport.
The Lithuanian airport authority identified the aircraft as a “DHL cargo plane flying from Leipzig, Germany, to Vilnius Airport.”
It posted on the social platform X that city services including a fire truck were on site.
DHL Group, headquartered in Bonn, Germany, did not immediately return a call for comment.
The DHL aircraft was operated by Swiftair, a Madrid-based contractor. The carrier could not be immediately reached.
The Boeing 737 was 31 years old, which is considered by experts to be an older airframe, though that’s not unusual for cargo flights.
UN chief slams land mine threat days after US decision to supply Ukraine
- The outgoing US administration is aiming to give Ukraine an upper hand before President-elect Donald Trump enters office
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the mines ‘very important’ to halting Russian attacks
SIEM REAP, Cambodia: The UN Secretary-General on Monday slammed the “renewed threat” of anti-personnel land mines, days after the United States said it would supply the weapons to Ukrainian forces battling Russia’s invasion.
In remarks sent to a conference in Cambodia to review progress on the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty, UN chief Antonio Guterres hailed the work of clearing and destroying land mines across the world.
“But the threat remains. This includes the renewed use of anti-personnel mines by some of the Parties to the Convention, as well as some Parties falling behind in their commitments to destroy these weapons,” he said in the statement.
He called on the 164 signatories — which include Ukraine but not Russia or the United States — to “meet their obligations and ensure compliance to the Convention.”
Guterres’ remarks were delivered by UN Under-Secretary General Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana.
AFP has contacted her office and a spokesman for Guterres to ask if the remarks were directed specifically at Ukraine.
The Ukrainian team at the conference did not respond to AFP questions about the US land mine supplies.
Washington’s announcement last week that it would send anti-personnel land mines to Kyiv was immediately criticized by human rights campaigners.
The outgoing US administration is aiming to give Ukraine an upper hand before President-elect Donald Trump enters office.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the mines “very important” to halting Russian attacks.
The conference is being held in Cambodia, which was left one of the most heavily bombed and mined countries in the world after three decades of civil war from the 1960s.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet told the conference his country still needs to clear over 1,600 square kilometers (618 square miles) of contaminated land that is affecting the lives of more than one million people.
Around 20,000 people have been killed in Cambodia by land mines and unexploded ordnance since 1979, and twice as many have been injured.
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) said on Wednesday that at least 5,757 people had been casualties of land mines and explosive remnants of war across the world last year, 1,983 of whom were killed.
Civilians made up 84 percent of all recorded casualties, it said.
Philippines’ Marcos says threat of assassination ‘troubling’
- Security agencies at the weekend said they would step up their protocols
MANILA: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos said on Monday he will not take lightly “troubling” threats against him, just days after his estranged vice president said she had asked someone to assassinate the president if she herself was killed.
In a video message during which he did not name Vice President Sara Duterte, his former running mate, Marcos said “such criminal plans should not be overlooked.”
Security agencies at the weekend said they would step up their protocols and investigate the statement, which Duterte made at a press conference. The vice president’s office has acknowledged a Reuters request for comment.
An average of 140 women and girls were killed by a partner or relative per day in 2023, the UN says
- The agencies reported approximately 51,100 women and girls were killed in 2023
- The rates were highest in Africa and the Americas and lowest in Asia and Europe
UNITED NATIONS: The deadliest place for women is at home and 140 women and girls on average were killed by an intimate partner or family member per day last year, two UN agencies reported Monday.
Globally, an intimate partner or family member was responsible for the deaths of approximately 51,100 women and girls during 2023, an increase from an estimated 48,800 victims in 2022, UN Women and the UN Office of Drugs and Crime said.
The report released on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women said the increase was largely the result of more data being available from countries and not more killings.
But the two agencies stressed that “Women and girls everywhere continue to be affected by this extreme form of gender-based violence and no region is excluded.” And they said, “the home is the most dangerous place for women and girls.”
The highest number of intimate partner and family killings was in Africa – with an estimated 21,700 victims in 2023, the report said. Africa also had the highest number of victims relative to the size of its population — 2.9 victims per 100,000 people.
There were also high rates last year in the Americas with 1.6 female victims per 100,000 and in Oceania with 1.5 per 100,000, it said. Rates were significantly lower in Asia at 0.8 victims per 100,000 and Europe at 0.6 per 100,000.
According to the report, the intentional killing of women in the private sphere in Europe and the Americas is largely by intimate partners.
By contrast, the vast majority of male homicides take place outside homes and families, it said.
“Even though men and boys account for the vast majority of homicide victims, women and girls continue to be disproportionately affected by lethal violence in the private sphere,” the report said.
“An estimated 80 percent of all homicide victims in 2023 were men while 20 percent were women, but lethal violence within the family takes a much higher toll on women than men, with almost 60 percent of all women who were intentionally killed in 2023 being victims of intimate partner/family member homicide,” it said.
The report said that despite efforts to prevent the killing of women and girls by countries, their killings “remain at alarmingly high levels.”
“They are often the culmination of repeated episodes of gender-based violence, which means they are preventable through timely and effective interventions,” the two agencies said.
Russia says it downs seven Ukrainian missiles over Kursk region
Russia’s air defense systems destroyed seven Ukrainian missiles overnight over the Kursk region, governor of the Russian region that borders Ukraine said on Monday.
He said that air defense units also destroyed seven Ukrainian drones. He did not provide further details.
A pro-Russian military analyst Roman Alyokhin, who serves as an adviser to the governor, said on his Telegram messaging channel that “Kursk was subjected to a massive attack by foreign-made missiles” overnight.
