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Grief and rage in India: making violence against women history?

There was uproar in India at the brutal gang rape of a 23 year old student on her way home from the cinema. Can we harness the international attention to this case to demand that the world's leaders commit themselves to a policy of zero tolerance of violence against women ?

By Naila Kabeer
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Two women sit with signs and symbolically gagged mouths alongside a crouching man with a sign.
Two women sit with signs and symbolically gagged mouths alongside a crouching man with a sign.

Protestors in central New Delhi.Photo: Demotix / Jiti Chadha

This article was first published in December 2012.  

When the international community came together in 2000 to agree the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG) that it would prioritize over the next 15 years, it did not include the issue of violence against women. Perhaps the problem did not appear sufficiently important or perhaps it was hoped that progress on the gender-related goals and targets that were adopted – education, labour market opportunities and political representation – would take care of the problem.

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0