‘Rape For Rape’: Village Leader Orders Girl Raped As Punishment For Her Brother’s Actions

A village headman in India is accused of ordering the rape of a 10-year old girl, to punish her border who reportedly sexually assaulted another girl. The details are shocking.

A 10-year old girl in Bokaro, India was reportedly raped on Tuesday in a nearby forest as most of the members of her village watched, according to multiple international news reports. The rape was ordered by a fear village headman — an unelected, self-appointed tribal leader — in retaliation for her brother’s accused actions of attempted sexual assault of another girl. The accused rapist, who is 25, reportedly is the brother of the girl who was initially the victim of the attempted sexual assault.

None of the villagers who stood by and watched the rape intervened or tried to protect the young girl, except for her mother.

“We kept begging them,” the mother said. “We begged with folded hands but they would not listen. They dragged her away to the forest.”

“A medical test has confirmed that the minor was raped,” NDTV reports. “Her father, a farmer, was out for work when she was dragged out of her home.”

Her mother, who was in the house, mutely accepts that her daughter was raped on orders of the headman, who appropriates that title by virtue of being the chief of a dominant caste in the village. 

The headman has been arrested, as has the rape survivor’s brother and the man who assaulted her.

Gawker adds that the “Indian government has improved sexual violence laws since 2012, when a girl was gang raped and murdered on a Delhi bus. Still, this year there have been at least two reports of young girls being raped as punishment — in May, two teen girls were found hanging from a tree after being apparently gang raped, and in January, a 20-year-old girl was gang raped because her village did not like who she was dating.”

The Times of India reports that the rape victim is 13-years old, and was “bleeding” after the attack. Three men including the village headman and the accused rapist have reportedly been arrested.

NDTV has a video report available to watch.

 

Image: Protests in Delhi seeking justice for girl who was subjected to gang rape, 2012. Photo by Ramesh Lalwani via Flickr.