As 2020 began an Indian court set an execution date for four men convicted of the 2012 gang rape and murder of a student in the capital, Delhi. The men were sentenced to death by a fast-track court in 2013. Their 23-year-old victim died from her injuries 13 days after she was raped and assaulted on a moving bus.
After this brutal attack the government responded with the passage of several new sexual assault laws, including a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years for gang rape, and six new fast-track courts created solely for rape prosecutions.
The changes in the law in India also happened in Australia after a series of gang-rape attacks committed by a group of up to 14 Lebanese Australian youths against Anglo-Celtic Australian women and teenage girls, as young as 14, in Sydney in 2000. The crimes, described as ethnically motivated hate crimes by officials and commentators, were covered extensively by the news media, and prompted the passing of new laws. In 2002 the nine men convicted of the gang rapes were sentenced to a total of more than 240 years in jail.
Currently in New York Harvey Weinstein is in court accused of multiple rape and predatory sexual assault. He has been using a walker when entering and leaving the court and the walker is playing a featured role at his trial. The decrepit-looking Weinstein, body hunched as he slowly rolls forward, contrasts sharply with his former image as a domineering Hollywood power broker.
Whether Weinstein needs a walker or the assistance of aides to help him in court because of recent back surgery, as his lawyers claim, is beyond the point. Seeing him lean on the walker or appear to struggle without it does more than just capture attention. The image creates impressions and can reinforce prejudices.
In England a child sex offender who sexually exploited an underage girl in Rochdale has been returned to the UK to serve a 19-year jail sentence after fleeing to Pakistan halfway through his trial. He was one of 10 men sentenced in 2016 for committing sexual offences against a teenage girl in Rochdale, but he fled the UK while on bail. He was sentenced in his absence to 19 years’ imprisonment in April 2016 after being found guilty of three counts of sexual activity with a child, two counts of rape and one count of conspiracy to rape.
Back over in America NBA star Kobe Bryant’s death in a helicopter crash sparked an outpouring of tributes from basketball fans. A ghost from the past has also surfaced about an accusation of him raping a 19-year-old Colorado hotel concierge when he was 24.
The case was supposed to go to a jury trial in August 2004, but the woman said she could no longer continue and as a result a civil case was settled for an undisclosed sum in 2005.
After the crash a Washington Post reporter was placed on “administrative leave” for two days after tweeting a link to a story on the case, and actress Evan Rachel Wood sparked a huge backlash for calling Kobe Bryant a rapist just hours after his death.
It really is appalling that men choose to treat girls and women in this way shattering lives, leaving the victims who survive sentenced to a lifetime of pain and low self-esteem.
Gordon is the former president and chief executive of BMMI. He can be reached at gordonboyle@hotmail.com