A 12-year-old girl gave birth at a government-run hospital in Kolkata recently after having been impregnated due to rape. And instead of commiseration or sympathy, she is currently facing the wrath of some neighbours, who are threatening her and her parents, asking them to leave the area lest they bring disrepute to the village they currently live in.
The girl's parents hid every detail of her identity when admitting her to the hospital for delivery. They even manufactured a name when asked for the identity of the girl's husband. Nevertheless, elders from the village they belong to managed to track them down and threatened them with dire consequences if they returned.
Another reason the details were hidden — for example, the girl's age is mentioned as 16 instead of 12 in the form used to admit her to the government-run hospital — is that her parents were afraid the hospital would not admit her if they came to know she was a rape survivor. "We did not complain at the time of rape fearing shame on the family. Now we have changed her name and also added a fake name as her husband's in the form."
The girl has been quoted by a Bengali news outlet as saying: "I was returning home around 8 pm one day when two people riding a bicycle stopped me and forced themselves on me. I did not recognise them. Now I am afraid. What shall I tell my daughter?"
Her parents and grandparents told the daily that though they had tried to take every precaution to keep the girl's current location secret, some village elders had landed up at the hospital on Sunday, March 12, and threatened the girl and her family with physical harm if they returned to the village. They also tried to pin the rape on the girl's grandfather.
