By Indira Guerrero
New Delhi, Aug 21 (EFE).- The discovery of the tortured body of a doctor in a hospital has sent shockwaves through India, exposing critical failures in the system’s handling of rape and violence in a country where a woman is raped every 16 minutes.
The 31-year-old doctor was raped and murdered in the early hours of Aug. 9 at RG Kar University Hospital in the Indian city of Kolkata while she was taking a break during a grueling 36-hour shift.
Her body was found with brutal injuries in a meeting room of the medical center, which lacks sufficient dormitories for female healthcare workers, according to police reports shared in the media.
The country’s healthcare services have been operating at minimal capacity for 10 days due to a strike by doctors demanding maximum security measures before returning to work, particularly for women who face the threat of attack in almost any public space.
Since the incident, the family of Devina Juneja, who works at one of New Delhi’s largest hospitals, fears daily for the safety of the 28-year-old doctor.
“My family is…always worried about me, every time I go out at night for work, or when they know I am coming home very late…even more so after hearing about how often these cases occur,” Juneja told EFE.
According to India’s latest crime report, covering 2022, the country recorded nearly half a million cases of violence against women and 31,500 rape cases in that year alone—approximately 86 per day.
“Hospitals in India are usually very big and sometimes I have to go from one building to another, and there is no light on the roads and that is scary…. I try to avoid it, but it’s my work area and at some point I will have to do it,” said Juneja.
Amid dozens of daily crimes against women in their own communities, at home, on their way back, or in workplaces, the rape and murder of the young doctor has ignited new fears in places previously outside daily scrutiny.
“Females personally try to take all measures possible to protect themselves, like carrying pepper spray in bags, sharing live location with family, being appropriately dressed at workplace (lest they should be blamed for being dressed provocatively),” another doctor Manali Agarwal told EFE.
“Some of us have even attended self defence classes to ensure our safety. We do everything possible to ensure our safety. However, unfortunately, it is not always enough.”
As part of the patriarchal system that still strongly governs Indian society, along with the daily dangers, women make up only 30 percent of the workforce, leading to a higher number of men dominating public spaces and a greater sense of hostility and vulnerability.
According to the doctors themselves, even the commute from their residences to the hospital now feels like a challenge, which invariably includes walking on dark streets alone.
Even if you leave to go home and live nearby, it’s a challenge because you never know what might happen, and “the problem is that for something bad to happen, it only takes one day, one occasion,” said Juneja. EFE
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