Break your silence, else break their legs!

Every girl, atleast once in her lifetime would have definitely undergone any sort of harassment. It can happen at any stage of our life, such as at schools, colleges, workplace or in public places. It need not always be physical. It includes behaviors that focuses on making someone feel bad.

Bullying is a common phenomenon in our country. From my point of view, insults are also considered as bullying. Even the little things hurt a lot. Bullying includes harassment, physical harm and many other ways. Sexual assault on women has become very common in our country. Of all these crimes, rape is the most violent crime which is committed against women.

I personally think that harassment is one of the most evil things that we human beings have to deal with. There is nowhere that feels safe anymore. When we are home alone, we're afraid that someone will break into our houses, when we're out, we're afraid that we'll be attacked.

We may feel humiliated, ashamed, or embarrassed about what we were forced to do. Intense fear may be experienced in many aspects of our life. Death threats would be forced upon us for telling it to anyone. If we feared for our life during the assault, we may be afraid that the criminal will return back to cause harm.

A rapist degrades and defiles the soul of a helpless female. After a rape incident, a woman lives a pathetic life which includes fear, depression, guilt complex, suicidal action, social stigma and what else.

Rape is the only crime, where the victim, a helpless female instead of being sympathized is socially degraded with the lifelong stigma attached to the character and dignity, for no fault of hers. Sexual assault is not her fault. This violence happens because of men's greater power in the society and misuse of that power.

The way women and men are brought up in our society, mainly in the rural areas, influences their behavior. Women usually lack the confidence because since childhood, their behavior has been customized to suffer silently and make compromises. On the other hand men are brought up exactly opposite to women. Such patriarchal view creates an atmosphere that allows men the freedom of sexual harassment in the society.

A very important reason is our sluggish court system. Fast track courts are the need of the hour that provides quick judgement to the victims. It is really sad to see how Nirbhaya got her justice finally, after 7 long years of struggle by her family. Why should we females suffer in silence for the crimes that we have never committed? When the criminals can freely move around us fearlessly without any guilt, then why should we cage ourselves in our homes with suffocation and fear? Once the brutal actions would be taken against the criminals, maybe then nobody would dare to touch a female.

There are statistics which show that every half an hour in our country, a female is raped and none of us are aware of it. It appears that the rapists are not scared of laws. Also, cases are being reported where even minors and elderly women are being raped.

Sometimes it's unnoticeable and other times it's right in front of our eyes. Many of us see something like this happening right in front of us, yet do not try to save our people. Because you can never understand what a girl goes through until it happens to you. A way to prevent harassment is to stand up for yourself. If you see someone being bullied, don't be a bystander. Be an upstander, stand up to the bully and if they bully you, then stand up for yourself. Only everyone's support in it can help us all.

Please raise your voices if it has happened to you too at any point of time. Let it be small or big because your silence can give more courage and strength to the person who has committed this and he would be repeating it again without any fear.

Most of them choose silence against this heinous crime and suffer alone. Only few of them try to raise their voices. Believe in your strength and your capacity to heal. While the process of healing may take time and it may be difficult, but you will find ways to overcome it naturally because you did not ask to be violated, and you did not do anything to deserve it.

While it is normal to feel angry, this emotion can be difficult for women to express. We have been socialized to be nice, to hide our anger. We can only wish that this never happens to any girl in our country.

Women are wonderful daughters, sisters, wives, and mothers. They should be loved, cared, respected and mainly should be protected.

We are in this together.