*Trigger Warning: Violence*
By Kritika Bhambhry for Azad India Foundation
Fear Of Safety
Nine out of ten girls are completing their primary education internationally, but only three out of four are completing their lower secondary education. Less than two-thirds of girls in low-income countries are in primary education, and about one in three are in lower secondary school.
The implications for girls of dropping out of school prematurely are serious. When thinking about what can be done to improve educational opportunities for girls, we need to consider the difficulties experienced by young girls. When parents are asked in surveys why their daughters have dropped out of education, there are often concerns related to the cost of schooling (out-of-pocket and opportunity costs), early marriages and unwanted pregnancies, a lack of school learning, and a lack of interest in attending school.
A recent study conducted by Save the Children in six Indian states shows that many talented girls are forced to drop out of school due to a lack of safe spaces like school, workplace and markets. They do not seek higher education and prevent themselves from engaging in work due to fear, and force themselves to stay inside their homes.
Violence is a serious problem in and around educational settings. The most well-known types of school-related gender-based violence may be sexual abuse and harassment, but it may take many other forms. Violence based on gender includes violence or bullying based on gender stereotypes or targeting students based on their gender, sexuality, or gender identity.
Strengthening gender roles and perpetuating gender inequalities is the main aim of this abuse. Rape, unwanted sexual contact, unwanted sexual remarks, corporal punishment, bullying, and verbal harassment are included.
Unequal relationships of power between adults and children and between men and women lead to this violence that may take place in school, on school grounds, on the way to and from school, or in school dormitories, and may be committed by teachers, students, or members of the community. Both girls and boys may be offenders as well as victims. Gender-based violence associated with school results in sexual, physical, and/or psychological damage to girls and boys.
In this article, I will be mentioning certain cases that prove even places like schools and colleges do not guarantee a safe environment to women which further leads to the families being sceptical about their education as their safety is much more important than their education.
Case 1: Four seniors gang-rape 14-year-old girl in Dehradun school and force-fed her chillies & papaya for 6 days
A 14-year-old girl gang-raped by four of her seniors at a Dehradun school was confined to a room for nearly a week and forced to eat herbs, chillies and papaya until she started to suffer from cramps and vomiting. All this because, having heard that she had become pregnant, her school administrators decided to trigger a miscarriage in an effort to save the integrity of the school. They took her to a nearby clinic, where they were eventually exposed, only after their attempts failed.
Case 2: Electrician in Delhi Government school allegedly rapes class 2 student
At a government-run school in the heart of Delhi, a six-year-old was allegedly raped by an electrician. The defendant was detained, the police said. The rape was confirmed in her medical report. Four government officials have been suspended, including the school’s headmistress.
The girl in class 2 was reportedly gagged by an electrician who pulled her to the school premises’ water pump and raped her. The incident came to light when she told her parents about her ordeal after returning home.
Case 3: 40-year-old arrested after allegedly raping a six-year-old strangling her with school belt
In Tonk district’s Aligarh police station region, a six-year-old was abducted and allegedly raped and murdered. On a Saturday afternoon, the girl went missing and her body was discovered behind some bushes on the following Sunday morning.
Her suspected rapist was a neighbour who she would sometimes see from school on the way home. Whenever she stopped by, Mahendra Meena, a truck driver with two daughters of his own, aged 2 and 18, would give sweets and hugs to the six-year-old. So when he was seen cuddling her on Saturday and giving her some toffees, no one felt that was odd.
But when she left the school gates that afternoon, Meena allegedly took her to the forest behind the school. He is accused of raping her in an abandoned hut with a single window, and then of covering the evidence of his crimes, by putting her belt around her neck and strangling her, and then discarding her body in the parched scrubland. ⠀
Case 4: Principal allegedly raped 6-year-old in school, offered her chocolate
A school principal was arrested in Jharkhand’s Koderma district on charges of allegedly raping a six-year-old child. According to police reports, S. Xavier, the Principal of Tilaiya Public School, was detained at the Tilaiya Police Station after the girl’s father lodged a complaint against him.
The principal reportedly assaulted the child on November 29, 2017, inside the school’s washroom. He gave her a chocolate when she started to scream. The principal told reporters that he has not committed “any big crime”. He said he committed the crime due to tension, and termed it as “accidental”‘.
Case 5: Student shot outside the exam centre
A young woman was shot dead outside Ballabgarh College, where she had gone to take an examination. She was a commerce student in her final year. Apparently, the attacker, Touseef, and his friend Rehan were waiting in a car for her to come out. Touseef and Nikita knew each other and he also abducted her in 2018, said OP Singh, a police officer from Faridabad.
All the aforementioned cases are few of the multiple crimes against women that take place on a daily basis. In India, sexual harassment against women is pervasive. India reported 88 rape cases every day in 2019, according to recent data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). In 2019, almost 6,000 rape cases were reported in the northwestern state of Rajasthan, followed by Uttar Pradesh with 3,065 cases.
It is possible that these statistics would be just the tip of the iceberg. A complaint is only filed by a fraction of women who are raped. Due to the social stigma attached to rape, most victims prefer to remain silent. It is not unusual to blame the victim or to cast aspersions on her character.
Given the circumstances, it is understandable why parents make their daughters drop out of school because their safety is not guaranteed anywhere, not even educational institutions like school and colleges. The rising violence against females is keeping young girls out of school and is an obstacle to their education.