Anti-rape protests are continuing in India after the death of a 23-year-old student who was gang-raped on a moving bus in New Delhi. The woman’s ashes were scattered in the Ganges River Tuesday, and many New Year’s celebrations were canceled after she succumbed to injuries sustained in the attack. The case has sparked a nationwide call for reforms to increase punishment for rapists and prevent legal cases from languishing. Hundreds of thousands of people took part in a candlelight vigil to honor the victim and call for the six suspects to be punished.
Anjali: “Being a woman, I feel it’s not just about these six people who have been arrested (for the gang-rape crime in New Delhi). It’s about everything that goes wrong against women. It’s about child abuse. It’s about domestic violence. It’s about rape. It’s about molestation, eve teasing. And a very simple thing that we can do, both men and women, is that we need to raise our voices.”
The gang-rape case has shone a light on other instances of sexual violence in India, where one woman is raped every 20 minutes, according to the national crime registry.