27% Of Europeans Think Rape Can be Justifiable: Study

A new study has found that 27 per cent of Europeans think rape can be justified under certain circumstances. The study, which surveyed  around 30,000 people, presented them scenarios such as being drunk or wearing revealing clothing and asked if intercourse would be justifiable in these circumstances.

12 per cent of respondents said forced sexual intercourse was acceptable if the victim was under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and 11 per cent said it was acceptable if the victim had gone back home with the perpetrator. Shockingly, 10 per cent of the respondents said rape was acceptable if the victim did not say no clearly, and did not fight back.

Respondents from Eastern European countries said that rape is most acceptable in these scenarios. 55 per cent of Romanian respondents thought it was acceptable, and 47 per cent of Hungarian respondents thought it was responsible under certain circumstances.

The situation in India is even worse. According to Amnesty International, a woman in India is reportedly raped every 15 minutes, and is a victim of crime every two minutes. The sex ratio in India is 102.5 males per 100 females. Men’s attitude towards rape is a huge problem in the country. The former chief minister of UP, Mulayam Singh Yadav, had once said that ‘boys will be boys” while commenting on rape.

Marital rape is still not considered a crime in India. Maneka Gandhi, the minister for Women and Child Development, has even said that the concept of marital rape, as understood internationally, cannot be suitably applied in the Indian context due to "various factors like level of education/illiteracy, poverty, myriad social customs and values, religious beliefs, mind-set of society to treat the marriage as a sacrament, etc.”

Leaders across the world need to condemn rape in any situation.

Also Read: Sick statistics: 34,651 rape cases reported in India in 2015

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