Rohtak:
In the wake of the alleged gang rape of a young Dalit woman in Rohtak, a top United
Nations (UN) official has condemned the “heinous culture of impunity”
surrounding violence against women and demanded immediate action to end the
“brutality”.
In a statement made on Wednesday, United Nations
Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) Principal Gender Advisor Anju Malhotra said,
“The reported gang rape of a young Dalit woman in India by the same five men
who had raped her three years ago underlines the heinous culture of impunity
that surrounds violence against girls and women.”
Malhotra said approximately 120 million girls
worldwide one in every ten will experience sexual violence and a majority of
these girls are violated for the first time between the ages of 15 and 19.
“But outrage is not enough. We need action
now to end this brutality that has become routine and to give the victims of
violence the justice and protection they deserve,” she added.
The 21-year old girl has told investigators
that she was not only drugged and gang-raped, but that two of her attackers had
drugged and raped her three years earlier.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s Deputy
Spokesman Farhan Haq expressed hope that the UNICEF statement will be followed
up on. “But certainly regarding this case our point is it goes beyond this
particular case, in this particular country. According to UNICEF, this is a
problem affecting 120 million girls worldwide, so it’s a huge, huge problem and
when we talk about ending this culture of impunity we mean it needs to be ended
across the board, in every country,” he told reporters at the daily briefing on
Wednesday in response to a question on the incident.
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