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A Personal Nightmare of Assault in India
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of New York Times
Posted: March 5th, 2013
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/a-personal-night...
In a hotel in southern India, in the midst of a dreamless sleep, I awoke inside a nightmare. I heard someone screaming. Im not sure how much time passed before I realized that it was my scream. I had traveled to India on behalf of a U.S.-based organization to film a documentary about political street theatre and how art is used as a tool for social change. But I found myself awake in this nightmare, with a man violently gripping my mouth shut, attempting to rape me. I was biting and kicking, using every ounce of my energy to fight for my life. I continued to scream and fight incessantly, until finally he relented. [He] said, Ill leave. Dont tell the manager. He counted on the fact that he lived in a culture that blamed the victim that the stigma associated with sexual assault would force a woman to keep quiet. And although I had escaped the worst-case scenario, and prevented a rape, the nightmare was far from over. For several weeks, I tried to get a response from several American and Indian bureaucracies, but they all responded the same way: by doing nothing. Despite my formal complaints, in which I detailed the attack in full, these institutions offered no assistance not even a single follow up call. I was devastated. I traveled to India on part of an American organization, and received no mental, physical or emotional support.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse, click here.
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