UN concern over rapes in India

• Calls for immediate action against gang-rape in UP
• Violence against women is a human rights issue

New Delhi: The United Nations, too, has called for immediate action against perpetrators of gang-rape incidents in Uttar Pradesh and to address violence against women and girls across India. UN Resident Coordinator Lise Grande said, “There should be justice for the families of the two teenaged girls and for all the women and girls from lower caste communities who are targeted and raped in rural India. Violence against women is not a women's issue, it's a human rights issue.”

Lise Grande noted that many progressive reforms and changes had been put in place following the brutal gangrape and murder of a young woman in Delhi in December 2013 and stressed the need for implementing the laws meant for the protection of girls and women.

The world body assured its support to people across the country to do what it takes to ensure that every woman and girl could live safely and with dignity everywhere.

The latest brutal act of violence against the girls in UP also highlights the dangers girls and women all over India are exposed to due to the lack of toilets. UNICEF Representative to India Louis-Georges Arsenault said around 65 per cent of rural population in India defecated in the open and women and girls were expected to go out at night. “This does not only threaten their dignity, but their safety as well,” Arsenault said.