Nirbhaya

Four years ago in Delhi, a gang of five men* and a boy raped and brutally murdered a young woman. The internal injuries she sustained from a metal rod being thrust inside her eventually caused multi-organ failure. She died a few days later, despite desperate attempts to treat her in specialist unit in Singapore. The…

Street Play

A troupe of young lawyers from Delhi University came to Jahangir Puri today to put on a street play about gender based violence. This is a great way to reach lots of people and educate them on the subject. This is the rape scene. The troupe will be sitting their examinations at the end of…

Light Greens

This is a not a self portrait. He looks green with envy. This is a mask from NE India, in the National Museum in Delhi. Taken with my Lumix LX100 shutter speed 1/10th second, f5.6, ISO 1600. On a more serious note, the clinic where I work in Jahangir Puri, North Delhi, for Medecins Sans…

Time for a change

Early next month, I start work with Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) in Jahangir Puri, a slum area in North Delhi, at their new sexual and gender based violence clinic, Umeed Ki Kiran. The contract is for a minimum of 12 months. From the clean air and pleasant climate of South Luangwa in July,…

Live Wire

I could tell this was going to be a rowdy session when the teacher warned the class, “The visitors will be showing some graphic images of sexual diseases, so if anyone feels that they are not mature enough to see them, please leave now.” This produced a roar of anticipation from the boys on the…

Spreading the Word on Sexual Violence

How do you change hearts and minds? Well, we certainly don’t have anyone “by the balls”, as Chuck Colson (a presidential adviser to LBJ) said, so we will have to rely on persuasive argument. Rates of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) in Swaziland are shocking. Recent studies by UNICEF and the Centers for Disease…