雅思阅读精选：印度轮奸案受害者应"被匿名"吗?_雅思英语阅读

雅思阅读精选：印度轮奸案受害者应"被匿名"吗?

　　Protecting the anonymity of rape victims in court and the media is a widely practiced way to give them the space to recover and to protect them from further harm. It is part of the Indian penal code and has been supported in amendments to the countrys anti-rape legislation. In 1983, that law went through several changes after another egregious sexual assault mobilized womens groups to fight for improvements to the law. In recent weeks, the government has again promised several revisions that would toughen it further, one of several measures the government has taken to improve the safety of women in India since the Dec. 16 attack. Confidentiality is a human right when it comes to the victim, says Anne Stenhammer, the regional program director for UN Women South Asia. If the family of the victim wants to reveal the name, that is a different case.

　　Evidently, at least some of the family does. Support for Tharoors idea has come from protesters, activists and more recently the victims father. He said naming the revised anti-rape law after his daughter would be a step in the right direction in a recent interview with news network CNN-IBN. A law named after an individual, for whom the entire country came together, will obviously be much more effective, he said. This will also ensure that she will be immortalized forever.

　　But not everyone has clambered aboard. The ruling Congress party, to which Tharoor belongs, was irked that the high-profile Minister floated the idea without consulting the government first. While not prohibited, naming laws after individuals in order to memorialize them and help the public identify with a cause, like Jessicas Law and Megans Law in the U.S., has not been practiced in India. That in itself is not much of a reason not to reconsider. But there is a graver case to be made for not changing Indias culture of confidentiality for rape victims, even with the familys permission. More than in other societies, there is a huge stigma to the survivor and victim of rape , says Vrinda Grover, a human-rights lawyer in New Delhi. It is the survivor and victim who is blamed for the sexual assault, and her life is made completely hellish Confidentiality allows her to move on.