If India wants to be one of the leading nations of the world, it needs to clean house and bring its morality into the twenty-first century.
After a nine-year-old Russian girl vacationing with her family on the beaches of Goa was raped by two Indian men, Pamela Mascarhenas, Goa’s deputy director of tourism, put the blame squarely on the girl, who was wearing a bikini.
“You can’t blame the locals; they have never seen such women. Foreign tourists must maintain a certain degree of modesty in their clothing. Walking on the beaches half-naked is bound to titillate the senses,” Mascarhenas said.
Surely, Mascarhenas was reprimanded by the director, right?
“I have not talked to her [Mascarhenas] on this issue directly, but I think that sentiment has also been echoed by our minister in one or two statements. There is a degree of cultural shock for our native population when they see certain type of dressing,” said Swapnil Naik, director of the Goa tourism department.
Cultural shock when a preteen is seen in a bikini?
Of course, what else are a couple of modest-minded Indian men going to do but rape her?
It is the blame the victim game again.
If they do not want the tourists to come to the beaches, then close it to them or ban bikinis if it is too hard for Indian men to control themselves. When the tourists can only wear long sleeves, trousers and long skirts to the beaches the rapes will go away…because none of the tourists will visit those beaches. That is why a rape here and there is perfectly fine to the tourism officials. All that foreign tourist revenue “is bound to titillate the senses.”
