India ranks among lowest 4 nations in rape cases: Maneka Gandhi

NEW DELHI: Concerns raised over cases of rape and violence against women prompted Union minister Maneka Gandhi on Monday to come up with a response that took a gathering of women journalists by surprise. The women and child development minister said India “ranked among the lowest four countries in the world” in terms of rape cases.

Speaking at a workshop for women journalists, Maneka recollected how she had held out data before a person in a “position of authority” in Sweden to show him how “India ranked among the lowest four countries in the world in terms of rape cases and Sweden was at the top”.

“I went to Sweden two years ago when because of the Nirbhaya incident, cases were being reported every day. Someone said to me that no one wanted to travel to India. I had data with me and I took a look at it and then showed it to him. As per that data in the world, we ranked among the lowest four countries in terms of rape cases. Sweden was number one,” she said.


She said she also told him that “in those countries it does not become big news as their newspapers don’t report these cases like we do. We have zero tolerance towards rape and our newspapers will write about it everyday”.

Maneka’s remarks on Monday stood out as it is felt that in India, sexually-violated women do not come out to report crimes out of fear of further exploitation and the stigma whereas in countries like Sweden there is greater reporting of such crimes and also rape laws are very stringent.

Responding to a concern raised by a journalist about cases of abuse in her state, Maneka first told her that in terms of data her state was not one of the worst in terms of rapes, while asserting she was undermining the situation but only putting it in perspective.