Punishing the brother by raping the sister

A village council in India has ruled that two sisters should be raped as 'punishment' for their brother running away with a married woman from a higher caste.

Meenakshi Kumari, aged 23, and her 15-year-old sister, will then be paraded naked with their faces blackened through the streets, according to a ruling from the all-male village council.

Violating their brother

It would be shocking if the two young women had committed the supposed 'crime'.

The fact that it was their brother, not they, shows that women are considered property in some cultures to the extent that their own human rights simply do not matter. Raping these women isn't considered a violation of their own selves, but of their male relative.

Amnesty International has set up a petition to try and stop the sentence being carried out, but Indian authorities are notoriously reluctant to intervene in the Khap courts that exist throughout rural India, so the prognosis looks bleak. Amnesty petition to demand justice