Amnesty exposes India’s systematic impunity for sexual violence
Death of Manipur’s survivor is devastating indictment of India’s inaction: Patel
New Delhi: Amnesty International has said that the death of a young Kuki-Zo woman, who was a victim of sexual violence during Manipur’s ethnic conflict, exposes the Indian state’s systemic failure to deliver justice and protect survivors.
According to Kashmir Media Service, Chair of the Board at Amnesty International India, Aakar Patel, said the woman’s death is a devastating indictment of India’s continued inaction on sexual violence during the Manipur conflict. He said the victim was abducted and gang-raped at the age of 18 and spent her final years suffering from physical injuries and psychological trauma that authorities failed to acknowledge or address.
Patel said that despite an FIR being filed more than two-and-a-half years ago, not a single perpetrator has been identified, arrested or prosecuted. He demanded immediate, thorough, independent and impartial investigations into all allegations of sexual violence during the Manipur conflict and called for accountability of all those responsible, including officials found complicit through negligence or collusion. He also urged reparations, medical care and psychosocial support for survivors and their families.
He said the young woman should have lived to see justice, but instead became another silent casualty of state inaction, adding that her death must not be allowed to become a mere statistic.
The woman died on January 10, but her death was made public on January 17 by the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum. Her mother said her health had deteriorated since the May 2023 attack. According to the FIR, she was abducted in broad daylight in Imphal, sexually assaulted by armed men and dumped in a creek, and later suffered severe uterine complications and psychological trauma.
Since May 2023, at least 260 people have been killed and thousands displaced in the ethnic violence between the Meitei majority and the Kuki-Zo minority communities. Amnesty said sexual violence has been systematically used to degrade, dehumanize and terrorize indigenous women and girls.
