A few weeks ago, India erupted in anger as a 23-year-old female student died from injuries sustained after she was gang raped in New Delhi. The case shocked India and sparked a debate about the treatment of women. Following the incident, news reports around the world highlighted the many reasons why women face sexual harassment in Indian society. They talked about the patriarchal nature of the society, the outrageous comments made by several politicians regarding the causes of rape, the length of time rape cases took to come to trial, and the number of members of parliament who were accused of rape but continued with their political careers and several other factors. They also repeated certain statistics to indicate how widespread this crime is in Indian society. The BBC and other outlets repeated the claim that India is a country where a rape is reported every 21 minutes,

 

In India, just over a quarter of the alleged rape perpetrators were  convicted in 2010 while in the U.S., only 24 percent of the alleged rapes even resulted in an arrest, let alone a conviction. So some statistics appeared to disprove the popular notion that women were safer in the developed West compared to the rest of the world.

 

A few days ago, I noticed a tweet from the respected Channel 4 news reporter regarding the updated figures for sexual crimes in England and Wales. I was surprised because the figures were higher than the previous official figures.

 

The figures compiled by the Ministry of Justice, the Home Office and the Office for National Statistics suggest that about 1,000 rapists are convicted every year despite up to 95,000 people being subjected to rape. The same figures showed that nearly 500,000 people are victims of sexual crimes in England and Wales over a twelve month period and that 1 in 20 women has been the victim of a serious sexual assault including rape, and that 90% of these victims actually knew the perpetrator.

 

As these horrendous figures were released, I wondered if there would be a huge debate and soul searching as to the causes and remedies. After all, these were figures for England, not far away India, so surely there would be a lot of discussion on the main current affairs programmes. It was not to be. I noticed some newspaper coverage and a few brief discussions but little public outcry. Why?

 

Deborah Mcilveen from the organisation Women's Aid said, "These figures may seem shocking, but unfortunately they come as no surprise. Most victims still don't report crimes - and the fact that there are so few convictions does little to encourage other victims."

 

As I sat debating issues with a friend, I raised the issue of the lack of reaction to the latest horrendous England and Wales sexual crime figures - unlike the outrage we saw in India, or indeed the outrage of commentators here with regards to the tragic case in India whilst they hardly reacted to these figures. He pointed out that the issue is that Western societies see themselves as having moved on from the causes of the problem in India. So they would say that India is a largely male dominated society with disparaging views towards women, whereas the UK is obviously no longer that. They would say that women are liberated and free - something India is aspiring to be. Such a mentality means that Western societies do not recognise that some of the values they hold may be the cause of some of the behaviour that leads to such large number of crimes against women.

 

These latest figures show that sexual crimes are not just a side issue for society, but a problem pervading all strata of society. They also show that the harassment of women is a problem not only in the third world or parts of the Muslim world, but in the ‘advanced' secular liberal world where the constant promotion of the view of women as sexual objects has resulted in a disastrous situation. A further tragedy is that because they believe that the West has moved on and women are liberated, they are not even able to admit or confront the true extent of the problem.

 

Taji Mustafa

Media Representative of Hizb ut Tahrir in Britain