Go Beyond

New Delhi, India

Five years old — somehow I struggle to wrap my head around how anyone could brutally rape a five year old girl and then toss her maimed body in a garbage dump. And yet that’s what happened this week in India … again. Every single time I visit India and pick up a newspaper I read about multiple incidents of rape, including the rape of very young girls.

This particular incident occurred in the city of Sikar in the state of Rajasthan in northwestern India. A poor mother and her children were sleeping beside the road (not unusual in India) when two men abducted the little girl and then gang-raped her. When her mother found out that her daughter was missing, she went to more than one police station to report her concerns. No one took her seriously.

So, the mother took matters into her own hands. She searched for her missing daughter and eventually found her in a garbage dump. I can’t imagine the horror this mother must have felt when she found her little girl barely alive. The mother immediately took her daughter to the nearest hospital. Sadly, there was also alleged negligence on the part of the hospital in starting treatment of the girl. The entire matter is now under investigation.

The five-year old girl underwent three hours of surgery to repair severe vaginal and rectal damage. Unbelievable that any five-year old girl should have to have this kind of surgery. If she survives the next thirty-six hours, then doctors expect she will remain hospitalized for the next three weeks. And that’s just to heal from the physical trauma. This child will have to live with the emotional trauma for a lifetime.

Can India expect the tide of violence against girls to turn when the country is so steeped in gendercide, foeticide, a dowry system that puts women at risk, and its own version of machismo that blames women for the problem? Can the problem be remedied by enacting stronger laws against those who commit these kinds of crimes against women — and then actually enforcing those laws?

India needs more than laws to fix the problem of how women are treated, it needs to train her boys to value women and regard them with dignity. The problem is not with women. The problem is with boys. It’s time to stop blaming women and to start bringing up boys the right way — teaching them by word and example to respect the opposite sex. If this does not happen soon, then India will remain one of the most dangerous places on the planet to be a girl.

At its core, the problem in India is fueled by a worldview that lacks any regard for the sanctity of human life. A worldview that believes that people are not created equal and that some are better than others because of their caste creates the perfect storm for the abuse of human beings that are vulnerable because they are poorer, weaker, or just happen to be women. Unless people embrace a worldview that regards all people as created in the image of God and therefore worthy of respect, ultimately no one in India will be safe.

This evening I spoke with our partner who hosts the only radio program on the subcontinent that addresses all matters concerning women from a biblical worldview. She told me about the proliferation of pregnancy screenings to determine the sex of the baby. If tests reveal the baby is a girl, then most women opt for an immediate abortion.

However, she also said that because abortion is such a lucrative practice, investigations have revealed that doctors are lying to women who are actually carrying baby boys in their womb. So, to many doctors in India, every child in the womb is a girl and represents another opportunity to generate a buck by killing a baby. The bottom line: ultimately no one will be safe in any society that disregards the value of another human being.