“She must have done something. Why else would she be raped?”
I am sure most of us have lost count of the number of times this has been said every time we hear news of a rape that happened in our country. From the aunty next door, to the policeman who took down the victim’s complaint to the defense lawyers, everybody has their own opinion on who is the culprit in this episode, never mind the law, and never mind the victim’s trauma.
Sometimes their theories are outlandish to the point of justifying rape with bizarre reasons such as ‘wearing jeans’ or ‘eating chowmein’. The story, however, never ends there. The social stigma attached to the crime aggravates the pain even more.
These posters created by art student Himani Uplish and originally uploaded on Behance as a social media campaign for a class project to increase awareness among people about harassment after the harassment. If they seem eerily familiar, it’s because they reflect exactly what we have heard around us after every rape. The project wants people to introspect on their attitude towards any kind of sexual harassment. Will it work?
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