(Trigger warning: Descriptions of sexual violence and suicide. Reader discretion advised.)
She had already filed her complaint. She had already named her harasser. She had already gone to the internal committee. But nothing happened. So, in utter despair, a 20-year-old college student in Odisha set herself ablaze inside the campus. Her story and plight is not an exception; it is rather emblematic of a broken system that fails to protect its most vulnerable.
For thousands of young women across Indian campuses, speaking out about sexual harassment is a lonely and dangerous act, often met not with justice, but with silence, indifference, or even retaliation. Administrators do little in supporting the survivors and often make procedures (safeguarding for justice) the very tool for harassing those seeking it.
According to India’s National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), 99.1 percent of sexual violence cases in the country go unreported. On campuses, this gap is echoed and amplified.
A 2018 study at Delhi University revealed that one in four female students had experienced harassment. Recently, sociologist Dr Akriti Bhatia cited a research paper noting that 40 percent of harassment cases on campuses never even get reported. These figures highlight not only systemic failure but also a culture that erases lived experience.