纽约时报:印度强奸案难以启齿的事实

The Unspeakable Truth About Rape in India By SONIA FALEIRO January 05, 2013

印度强奸案难以启齿的事实

索尼娅·法莱罗 2013年01月05日

I LIVED for 24 years in New Delhi, a city where sexual harassment is as regular as mealtime. Every day, somewhere in the city, it crosses the line into rape.

我在新德里生活了24年，在那里，性骚扰就和吃饭一样频繁。每天，这个城市的某个角落都会有强奸案发生。

As a teenager, I learned to protect myself. I never stood alone if I could help it, and I walked quickly, crossing my arms over my chest, refusing to make eye contact or smile. I cleaved through crowds shoulder-first, and avoided leaving the house after dark except in a private car. At an age when young women elsewhere were experimenting with daring new looks, I wore clothes that were two sizes too large. I still cannot dress attractively without feeling that I am endangering myself.

还在十几岁的时候，我就学会了保护自己。如果可以的话，我从不独自一个人站着；我走路的速度很快，双手交叉抱在胸前，不和人有眼神接触，也不向人微笑。从人群中穿过时，我总是先用肩膀为自己开道；我也避免在天黑后出门，除非是乘坐私家车。在其他地方的年轻女孩正尝试大胆而新颖的打扮装束时，我要穿大两号的衣服。至今，我在穿得很漂亮的时候，依然觉得我是在给自己制造危险。

Things didn’t change when I became an adult. Pepper spray wasn’t available, and my friends, all of them middle- or upper-middle-class like me, carried safety pins or other makeshift weapons to and from their universities and jobs. One carried a knife, and insisted I do the same. I refused; some days I was so full of anger I would have used it — or, worse, had it used on me.

我长大成人后，情况并没有发生变化。在弄不到胡椒喷雾的情况下，我的朋友们在往返学校或上下班时，都带着别针或其他一些临时防身武器。他们都和我一样，属于中产或中上层阶级。有个朋友带着一把刀，还坚持要我也那样做。我拒绝了；有时候我太生气了，如果有刀的话，我可能真的会用，或许更糟的是，那把刀会插到自己身上。

The steady thrum of whistles, catcalls, hisses, sexual innuendos and open threats continued. Packs of men dawdled on the street, and singing Hindi film songs, rich with double entendres, was how they communicated. To make their demands clear, they would thrust their pelvises at female passers-by.

挥之不去的口哨声、嘘声、嘶嘶声、性暗示以及公开威胁仍在发生。成群结队的男子在街头闲逛，唱着印地语的电影歌曲，歌里充满了大量双关语，这就是他们与女性“交流”的方式。为了让他们的需求更直白，他们甚至会朝着女性路人猛拱下体。

If only it was just public spaces that were unsafe. In my office at a prominent newsmagazine, at the doctor’s office, even at a house party — I couldn’t escape the intimidation.

如果仅仅是公共场所不安全就好了。在我工作的一家知名新闻杂志社、在医生的办公室，甚至在家庭聚会上，我都无法逃过恐惧。

On Dec. 16, as the world now knows, a 23-year-old woman and a male friend were returning home after watching the movie “Life of Pi” at a mall in southwest Delhi. After they boarded what seemed to be a passenger bus, the six men inside gang-raped and tortured the woman so brutally that her intestines were destroyed. The bus service had been a ruse. The attackers also severely beat up the woman’s friend and threw them from the vehicle, leaving her to die.

现在，全世界都知道，12月16日，一名23岁的女性和一名男性友人在德里西南部的一座电影院看过《少年派的奇幻漂流》(Life of Pi)后正要回家。他们坐上了一辆看着像是公交车的大巴后，车里的六名男性轮奸了这个女孩，他们还残忍地折磨她，导致她的肠道被毁。公交车只是一个幌子。袭击者还毒打了这个女孩的朋友，并把他们两人扔出车外，任由女孩等死。

The young woman didn’t oblige. She had started that evening watching a film about a survivor, and must have been determined to survive herself. Then she produced another miracle. In Delhi, a city habituated to the debasement of women, tens of thousands of people took to the streets and faced down police officers, tear gas and water cannons to express their outrage. It was the most vocal protest against sexual assault and rape in India to date, and it set off nationwide demonstrations.

这名年轻女性没有屈服。那天晚上，她先是看了一部有关一名幸存者的电影，因而肯定也下决心要让自己活下去。然后，她又创造了另外一个奇迹。在德里这个习惯贬低女性的城市，成千上万的民众走上街头，压倒了警察、催泪弹和高压水炮，表达他们的愤怒。这是印度迄今为止针对性侵犯和强奸声势最浩大的抗议活动，同时还引发了全国性的示威。

To protect her privacy the victim’s name was not released publicly. But while she remains nameless, she did not remain faceless. To see her face, women had only to look in the mirror. The full measure of their vulnerability was finally understood.

为了保护隐私，受害人的姓名没有公布。然而，尽管她的名字仍然不为人知，但她不再面目模糊。若想看看她的脸，女同胞们只需照照镜子。人们终于理解到，她们是多么脆弱。

When I was 26, I moved to Mumbai. A commercial and financial megalopolis, it has its own special set of problems, but has, culturally, been more cosmopolitan and liberal than Delhi. Giddy with my new freedom, I started to report from the red-light district and traveled across rough suburbs late at night — on my own and using public transit. It seemed that something good had come out of living in Delhi: I was so grateful for the comparatively safe environment of Mumbai that I took full advantage of it.

26岁的时候，我搬到了孟买。这是一个商业和金融大都市，尽管自身拥有一系列的独特问题，在文化上还是比德里更加包容和自由。新的自由让我眼花缭乱，我开始独自一人搭乘公共交通，在红灯区做新闻报道，并在深夜穿过穷苦的郊区。在德里生活时的某种好处，现在似乎体现出来了，我非常庆幸孟买有着相对安全的环境，因此我将这一优势发挥到极致。

The young woman, however, will never have such an opportunity. On Saturday morning, 13 days after she was brutalized, this student of physical therapy, who had, no doubt, dreamt of improving lives, lost her own. She died of multiple organ failure.

然而，那个年轻女孩，却再也不会有这么好的机会了。周六早上，在遭到残暴对待的13天后，这名无疑曾梦想着改善他人生活的物理疗法学生，无法再实现自己的梦想了。她死于多器官衰竭。

India has laws against rape; seats reserved for women in buses, female officers; special police help lines. But these measures have been ineffective in the face of a patriarchal and misogynistic culture. It is a culture that believes that the worst aspect of rape is the defilement of the victim, who will no longer be able to find a man to marry her — and that the solution is to marry the rapist.

印度拥有反对强奸的法律，在公车上有女性专座，还拥有女性官员，以及特设的警方协助热线。但面对仇视女性的男权文化，这些方法一直收效甚微。传统观念认为，强奸造成的最糟糕结果是受害者遭到了玷污，这样就找不到男人来娶她，因此解决方法就是嫁给强奸者。

These beliefs aren’t restricted to living rooms, but are expressed openly. In the months before the gang rape, some prominent politicians had attributed rising rape statistics to women’s increasing use of

cellphones and going out at night. “Just because India achieved freedom at midnight does not mean that women can venture out after dark,” said Botsa Satyanarayana, the Congress Party leader in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

这些信条并非只是在家中私下说说，而是会被公开表达出来。在这次轮奸事件发生数月前，一些知名政界人士把升高的强奸案数据归咎于女性越来越多地使用手机，以及在夜间外出。“印度取得了午夜外出的自由，这并不意味着女性可以顶着天黑出门，”安得拉邦国大党(Congress Party)领袖波查·萨蒂亚纳拉亚纳(Botsa Satyanarayana)说。

Change is possible, but the police must document reports of rape and sexual assault, and investigations and court cases have to be fast-tracked and not left to linger for years. Of the more than 600 rape cases reported in Delhi in 2012, only one led to a conviction. If victims believe they will receive justice, they will be more willing to speak up. If potential rapists fear the consequences of their actions, they will not pluck women off the streets with impunity.

改变是可能的，但警察必须为强奸和性侵犯的报告备案，调查和庭审应当迅速展开，而不是放到一边拖上数年。2012年，在德里有超过600宗强奸案件报案，但只有一宗被定罪。假如受害者相信她们能得到司法公正，她们就会更愿意说出来。假如潜在的强奸犯畏惧他们行为所带来的后果，他们就不会肆无忌惮地把女性从街头拽走。

The volume of protests in public and in the media has made clear that the attack was a turning point. The unspeakable truth is that the young woman attacked on Dec. 16 was more fortunate than many rape

victims. She was among the very few to receive anything close to justice. She was hospitalized, her statement was recorded and within days all six of the suspected rapists were caught and, now, charged with murder. Such efficiency is unheard-of in India.

公众和媒体抗议活动的巨大规模已经说明，这次侵害事件是一个转折点。难以启齿的事实是，在12月16日遭到侵害的这名年轻女性，比许多其他强奸受害者都要幸运。她属于极少数得到些微司法公正的女性之

一。她被送进医院治疗，她的陈述被记录在案，数日之内全部六名强奸嫌疑犯悉数被捕，而且现在就以故意杀人罪被起诉。如此之高的效率在印度可说是闻所未闻。

In retrospect it wasn’t the brutality of the attack on the young woman that made her tragedy unusual; it was that an attack had, at last, elicited a response.

回顾此事，这名年轻女性的悲剧之所以非比寻常，原因并非在于侵害的残忍程度，而是在于它终于引发了反响。

Sonia Faleiro is the author of “Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay’s Dance Bars.”

索尼娅·法莱罗(Sonia Faleiro)是《美丽的事物：孟买舞蹈酒吧内的神秘世界》(Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay’s Dance Bars)一书的作者。

翻译：林蒙克、陈亦亭

The New York Times Company