Few acts are as violent, invasive and scarring as rape. Compounding the injury is the abhorrent treatment all too often afforded rape victims. Far too frequently they are greeted with suspicion and insinuations — if not outright allegations — that a vicious assault is somehow their fault.
The criminal justice bureaucracy is often indifferent if not utterly hostile to the victim. The entire process is degrading and insulting.
That said, few such incidents have commanded the international attention that followed the brutal gang rape and murder of a young Indian woman in New Delhi last month.