“I want to ask parents when your daughter turns 10 or 12 years old, you ask, ‘Where are you going? When will you return?’ Do the parents dare to ask their sons, ‘Where are you going? Why are you going? Who are your friends?’ After all, the rapist is also someone’s son. If only parents decide to put as many restrictions on their sons as they do on their own daughters."I'm glad that the PM is attempting to create discourse that is moving away from simply blaming the victim, which has had disastrous results up to this point in time; especially in the more rural communities.
I never understood why India never addressed this head on. When i spoke about these occurrences to my friend's parents months ago, their responses all circled the position of not letting their daughters out at all, that was the mindset. Of not only the parents of my friends, but many politicians as well. The mindset needed to change starting from the top. Modi ran an efficient and amazing campaign for his position, which resulted in his landslide victory. But to attack this issue early on in his term is so good to hear. I was truly scared for India to be a country where such grotesque events were a norm.
Moreover, Mr. Modi spoke of an aspect of this that Indian civil society has helped highlight publicly over the last couple of years – that this is not just a legal issue, but a societal one; not just about having the right laws in place, but also about changing culture.