Who Gives a Damn if the Victim “Forgives” the Rapist?

Can’t Forgive and Forget

Sometimes you have to hand it to the courts. Recent comments by the SC finally settled the issue of whether or not a rapist’s sentence should be lowered just because the victim “forgave” him. To me and many others, this seemed obvious. We don’t need the Supreme Court to tell us that a crime is a crime regardless of what happens afterwards. Either a rape occurred – or it didn’t. It can’t be conditional on future events!

Many people seem to think that if a victim forgives her rapist, then all’s well that ends well. Maybe she marries him or accepts financial compensation or whatever from his family and that’s sufficient reason to either drop the charges or significantly lessen them. For those with their head screwed on straight, this is an outrage. In an attempt to administer “social justice” many judges seem to have forgotten the long term consequences of this attitude and even the basic principles of law.

If it becomes known that a dead person forgave a murderer before they died, will the judiciary wrap up the case saying “Oh well…as long as they were forgiven, we’re just wasting our time”? Certainly not! After all, we don’t hold trials and administer justice for the sole purpose of satisfying the victim do we? Let’s leave aside the fact that this kind of stupidity gives every incentive to the rapist to pressurize the victim into marrying them by leveraging the shame that society places on her thereby condemning her to an eternal torture of marrying the person who violated her.

Rape is not just a offense against a specific person, but against the state itself. The laws of the country were broken and there have to be consequences for that also laid down by law. During a trial, the facts of the case determine whether or not the rape occurred. No one should ask if the rapist is repentant, has been forgiven, or has agreed to marry the victim. Because it’s doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant. So even though I shouldn’t have to say this, thank god for the higher courts who sometimes seem to be the only sensible institutions in the country!

Either a rape occurred – or it didn’t. It can’t be conditional on future events!

Another positive (and unexpected) side effect is that this should stop girls from filing rape charges against a man to force them into marriage. News reports are full of examples of women in live in relationships or long term sexual partnerships with men who later on refuse to get married. The implications of this ruling by the Supreme Court means that regardless of a future event of marriage, the rape case still has to proceed. Once again – a rape either took place, or it didn’t. Whatever happens in the future cannot change what happened in the past.

It’s amazing how such a simple observation by the courts can have such a large impact. It underscores the fact that rape in India is mostly about this stupid concept of “honor” and that a married woman being raped is somehow different from the same happening to a non married woman. There’s still a lot of bullshit swirling around in the heads of Indians. Like marriage being the end all of a woman’s life and rape turning her into a “living corpse”. Change will be slow, but we can at least prepare the laws in advance can’t we?

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9 thoughts on “Who Gives a Damn if the Victim “Forgives” the Rapist?”

  1. what if the victim simply dropped the charges? That happens quite frequently. Obviously a murder victim cannot drop charges and its “the people” that are representing the murdered. But a rape victim can simply drop the charges that h/she filed, right?

    Reply

    • In reply to Western Point of View

      Already explained in the article. Rape is a crime against the state as well as the person. It matters not if the victim drops the charges. The crime against the state still stands.

      Unless the victim says the rape never happened in the first place. In which case, she has to be taken to court to explain why she lied to the police.

      Reply

      • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

        gotcha. But is that the case for ALL rape cases? some rape cases the defense attorney may plead out and settle with the victim. It happens frequently enough. I suppose it is how good your laywer is. Sometimes some rape cases aren’t necessarily apart of the state.
        Even so, if the suspect is found not guilty by, o say a technicality, the case goes to a civil court, what if the victim drops the case there?

        Reply

      • In reply to Western Point of View

        Settling with someone is an option only in civil lawsuits. As long as it’s a criminal trial, what happens between the victim and the rapist is between them and has nothing to do with the separate criminal proceedings against them. When the state is involved, the accused can settle with the state for a reduced sentence etc etc. But not with the victim.

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  2. I agree.
    Also, the definition of Rape should be made very clear, it is not ‘rape’ if a woman was promised marriage by a man in return of having sex with him. In most such cases the woman wants the promise of marriage fulfilled, and the law sees the man as the rapist because it seems legally and patriarchally the man who ‘dishonours’ a woman, or ‘ruins her’ or takes away the only thing of value she has – an unblemished character (mainly her virginity) must do the most honourable thing that can be done to a woman in patriarchal societies – since that’s the only purpose of her life (so that she can continue to her next goal of bearing male children for her spouse or rapist’s ancestral names to be carried forward) … I think it should be made very clear that lack of consent is rape (no matter who the rapist) and not loss of virginity.

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