Rape cases - Attitudes must change

Ellen O’Malley-Dunlop of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre raises a critical question about attitudes to rape Ireland in her comment on the brutal murder of a 23-year-old Indian medical student, an appalling crime which has drawn worldwide condemnation. She asks: New Delhi and Dublin — how far apart are we?

With protests sweeping India following the vicious gang rape by six men, who beat the young woman with an iron rod and then callously dumped her from a moving bus, it is a timely and apposite question.

Sexual abuse and molestation of women are endemic in India. A rape occurs every 18 hours in Delhi, a city with a population of 14m. Yet astonishingly only 572 rapes were officially reported there in 2011.