Acquaintance Rape : When Protector turns into Tormentor.

“I Never called it Rape”

INTRODUCTION
The above statement “I Never called it Rape”(1988) is title of a book written by American Feminist Robin Warshaw which was his first major publication on acquaintance rape, which better signifies the acquaintance rape culture.
Many of us have come across several people who were assaulted, harassed or raped by their known ones, be it their friends, neighbours, relatives, cousins, doctors, colleagues, classmates, spouse and in current scenario parents also fall within this category which has really shook the conscience of the society.

Rape itself doesn’t destorys the body alone but also torns apart the soul of the victim and when it is done by the person whom the victim knows then it’s more traumatizing and that is when the term acquaintance rape emerges. Do you know, that rape is the fourth most common crime in India against women and as per the data of NCRB (National Crime Record Bureau) out of 33,356 rape cases 31,320 were the cases of acquaintance rape, which was 93.9% of the annually reported cases in India in 2018.



HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The concept of acquaintance rape can be traced back in 1950s in the study done by American Police rape files (1958-1960), in which it was found that about half of the cases were alleged to have been committed by men who knew their victims.

The term acquaintance rape was first used in 1978 in print by feminist writer and activist Diana Russell. She conducted the study on the womens of San Francisco, were she noted that 35% of cases were of acquaintance rape and only 11% were the cases of stranger rape.

MAJOR REASONS BEHIND THE ACQUAINTANCE RAPE

Every act which turns into crime or violence must have certain reasons behind it’s conduct and blaming the victim is surely not one what we generally do as a society, especially if it is committed against the women; by blaming her dress, friend circle, late night working hours and so on.
Some other reasons which we generally ignore are:
(a) Blind Trust : It is always said not to trust anyone blindly and especially in 21st century not at all.
Generally, we as a human being be it in any capacity trust our teachers, helpers, doctors, colleagues, friends, relatives, staff, tutors etc which may lead to certain crime. Being alert is only option available.

b) Reporting of acquaintance rape v. stranger rape : Reason behind this could be that accused thinks it’s easier to suppress the crime when the victim is known to him/her, by blackmailing and deterring.

(c)Greed of money : Sometimes Parents and guardians handover their child for such acts to whom they know, for money.

(d) No stand taken by family members : Sometimes such acts continue to happen on regular basis even after being reported to the family members or the family members itself suppress the victim to not report such incidents to anyone which may harm their honour, respect and prestige in the society. Sometimes mother’s also backout when it comes to report the crime either due to fear or don’t want to go against the soul bread earner.







REALITY CHECK
The most recent example of such incident can be traced from the