how women are treated

Imagine the United States as it is today, with a rise in misogynistic role models that rule the right wing agenda, people who encourage violence and disrespect towards women to millions of young men my age. These people preach that being a real man is being an “Alpha Male”, someone who treats women like objects and focuses solely on a capitalistic rise to power fueled by fast food and steroids. Unfortunately, men like these aren’t the exception in many countries, but the norm. In a small state under Karachi along the west coast of India, these men who still believe women are second class citizens exist, and are in charge of the state government, and just recently they released 11 men who were serving a life prison sentence for a gang rape they committed against a Muslim woman Bilkis Bano.

Along with being raped, her 3 year old daughter was thrown to the ground, killing her instantly. Bilkis was 5 months pregnant, and was one of the many muslim women who were brutally raped and murdered by the Hindu people of that area. Bilkis survived by playing dead while others around her were being hacked to pieces. This attack on March 3rd, 2022 was in retaliation to a anti-muslim attack on a train carrying Hindu pilgrims that saw 59 people killed after the train caught fire. The following retaliatory attacks by right-wing Hindu groups ended after 2,000+ Muslims in Gujarat were “hacked, shot and burned” according to Al Jazeera. Most of the women attacked were brutally raped then murdered.

Narendra Modi, the current prime minister of India, was the state's chief minister at the time, and was actively working to suppress the voices of human rights organizers accusing him of not doing enough to stop the mass murder. Narendra has been shifting his country to a right wing agenda ever since his re-election in 2019.

Narendra is also interestingly enough, a right-wing Hindu nationalist. In the 20 years since this massacre, Bilkis has fought tooth and nail for 17 years to get compensation of 5 million rupees (63,000USD) and the men were tried and sentenced to life in prison.

“Today, it has become commonplace for Hindu supremacists to openly give calls for genocide and rape of Muslims – without any consequences.”

Those are the words of the All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA) on the results of the trial. Those 11 men now walk free with full support of the prime minister and his cabinet. Men like Narendra, Donald Trump, and many others are the reasons why in this world, after everything that has been done for women's rights, women are continually assaulted and murdered, disrespected and treated like objects and this treatment is being supported by the government. In the so-called “land of the free” women's abortion rights have been taken, and with the actions that we have seen in the United States that parallel the freeing of these terrible men, who knows what will be in store next for women of the world?