livemint.com, 23 June 2014
New Delhi:It’s the same story retold countless times across the country. In Mewat, Haryana, a 12-year-old girl and her 10-year-old sister go to visit their grandparents in village Kurali Sohna. As night falls, the girls go out to defecate in the open, as they do every day.
A man from the village, who the girls know, accosts them a few metres outside their grandparents’ home. He manages to send the younger one off, drags the elder one aside and rapes her.
When the panchayat (village council) sits in judgement, the rapist has his face blackened, is beaten in public and made to pay a Rs.40,000 fine. The case is never reported to the police, says Monika Jain, deputy director, projects, International Academy of Environmental Sanitation and Public Health. They are too poor, says Jain, and have reposed their faith in justice from the panchayat. Read More....