Police in the city of Perumbavoor, near Kochi in Kerela state, detained three men on Tuesday, as a part of the investigation of the rape and murder of a Dalit student, whose body was found mutilated in her home on Friday (NYT, Indian Express) . The autopsy on the 30-year-old victim revealed she had been tortured and sexually penetrated before being murdered. The Dalit community is considered the lowest caste in India's centuries-old social hierarchy. Women’s groups in Kerela have called for protests in response to this case. There is a growing concern in India over the increasing sexual violence against women. Government data shows that there were 337,922 reports of violence against women, including rape, molestation, abduction and cruelty in 2014, a rise of 9% on the previous year's figures. In 2012 the fatal rape of a student in Delhi led to protests and the introduction of tougher anti-rape laws, however incidents of sexual violence against women continue to be increasingly reported across the country.
“When we say that nowadays to call for sexual freedom in Arab and Muslim societies is more dangerous than the demand to topple monarchies or dictatorial regimes, we are not playing with metaphor or attempting to gain sympathy. We are stating a bitter and painful fact of the reality in which we are living. In Arab and Muslim milieus, sex is considered a means and not an end, hedged by many prickly restrictions that make it an objectionable matter and synonymous with sin. Its function within marriage is confined to procreation and nothing else, and all sexual activity outside the institution of marriage is banned legally and rejected socially. Innocent children born out of wedlock are socially rejected and considered foundlings. This situation cannot be said to be characteristic of Arab societies only, but we experience these miseries in far darker and more intense ways than in other countries.”