Woman is sentenced for false rape: she will go to prison for the same amount of time as her alleged attacker

The sentence in India of a woman to four and a half years in prison for denouncing a false rape became an atypical precedent, with the risk of weakening the credibility of victims in a society that blames women for sexual abuse.

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The sentence was issued by a court in the city of Bareilly, in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The 21-year-old girl was accused of filing a false rape case against a man, retract his statement and become hostile during the trial, according to the specialized media Live Law.

“There is already a victim-blaming scenario in India where Everyone blames the woman for being raped, or the clothes she is wearing, or the place where they were, what time of day or night, Therefore, no woman should discourage others from reporting false cases,” women’s rights defender and director of the Indian Social Research Center, Ranjana Kumari, claimed to EFE.

In addition to receiving a sentence similar to the prison time that the accused served, The young woman was fined 588,000 rupees ($7,041.8), the amount that the man, justice estimated, would have earned. during the four years and five months if the false case had not been filed against him, according to the opinion.

According to Kumari, There are currently more than 97,000 rape cases pending in court, whose sentence has not yet been handed down.

These types of false cases only “they make other women feel afraid and remain silent, because we are facing a society that already blames the victims and where it is very difficult to prove certain types of facts,” he stressed.

“You can never forget a rape. If the complaint is false, it is wrong. You can’t humiliate a man and put him behind bars for no reason,” Kumari said.

Also in March 2024 A Delhi court sentenced a woman to two months in jail for deliberately giving false evidence. under oath in a rape case.

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