Yes, I Was Molested and No, I Will Not Back Down From My Fight For Justice

When a woman gets molested, why is it always her fault for getting molested, never the perpetrator’s for committing the crime? Why does he escape scot free?

The phone did not stop ringing all week.

Relatives, acquaintances, news channels, known and unknown people, everyone wanted to get the “scoop”. Everyone wanted to be voyeuristic and enjoy the details. Some were genuinely helpful and sympathetic, but 9/10 were only keen on knowing the details of the “scandal”. 

A middle-class girl who had worked hard all her life to reach where she was, Reena was under the radar of the society today. As it is the norm of our patriarchal society, the blame somehow always shifts to the girl. “She must have seduced him to gain promotion and when he refused she framed him”. Or, “these middle-class girls know how to trap a rich man and extort money”. 

The so-called concerned relatives smirked, “I had told Bhaisahab not to let Reena study so much or give her so much freedom.  Look what shame she has brought the family now!”

People would call up Reena and her family to know exactly what had happened and some would start doling out free advice and the consequences of the complaint.  Many asked Reena to take back the complaint and just ask for compensation as her future would be destroyed if she pursued the case against Rahul, as he was a powerful man. The news channels called Reena up and asked about gory details of “what exactly” did Rahul do. What were the chain of events? What was she wearing? What was the time? Where did he touch her and did he actually rape her?

Reena looked at her parents’ sad, humiliated and often accusing faces, but she had decided to pursue what she had started. She remembered since the day she had joined the company, Rahul would try all the tricks to get her to “please” him. Being a headstrong girl, she had refused his advances. He had threatened her with dire consequences. On that fateful day, Reena was working overtime and to her misfortune, Rahul had walked in late to get his mobile phone that he had forgotten in his cabin. The office was almost empty barring Reena, the peon and another colleague. Rahul had called Reena to his cabin, pretending some work and had molested her. He would have even raped her had the peon not knocked on the door in time!

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Reena felt humiliated and hurt, and decided to teach the arrogant rich brat a lesson. Initially, the police were reluctant to lodge a complaint as they knew Rahul and his father were powerful people, but Reena was adamant and the police had to file a complaint. Reena knew that it was going to be a long battle and that she might lose it, but she had decided that she wouldn’t give up.  She knew she and her parents would be harassed, humiliated, ridiculed, threatened. And yet she wanted to fight. Not just for herself, but for the millions of girls who, day in and day out, faced what she had faced.  She didn’t want men like Rahul to get away with their sexist, arrogant, misogynistic behaviour.

Reena knew her phone wouldn’t stop ringing for days to come now..

Photo by Kat Jayne from Pexels

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