20th March, 2013
Rape fears fuel tourists’ anxiety in India.
NEW DELHI - Danish tourist Judith Jensen has a long list of
don’ts to help her feel safe during her holiday in India. She won’t hail a taxi
off the street, she won’t stay in an obscure hotel and she won’t go out after
dark—all decisions made in response to the growing reporting of sexual crime in
the country.
“I have read and heard so much about rape in India that now
I feel this persistent sense of danger,” Jensen, 42, told AFP as she walked
through a popular market in downtown Delhi.
The tourism ministry’s ubiquitous Incredible India marketing
campaign has helped raise the number of foreign visitors over the past decade
to around 6.6 million a year—albeit still way behind the likes of China and
Malaysia. But that push is now hampered by a growing sense that India is simply
not a safe destination, particularly for women.
The fatal gang-rape of an Indian student in December shone a
disturbing light on the level of sexual violence and a series of subsequent
attacks on foreigners has added to the sense of unease.
A British holidaymaker in the northern city of Agra, home to
the Taj Mahal, suffered a leg injury when she jumped out of a hotel window
before dawn on Tuesday. Police said she feared a sex attack after two men tried
to enter her room.
Last Friday a Swiss woman was gang-raped while on a cycling
holiday in central India. Her husband was tied up by the gang, which is also
accused of stealing a laptop, a mobile phone and 10,000 rupees ($185). On the
same night a group of men in a city near Delhi briefly kidnapped an Indian male
executive working for the French engineering giant Alstom.
Other incidents reported since the December gang-rape
include that of a South Korean student who said she had been raped and drugged
by the son of the owner of the hotel where she stayed during a holiday in
January. A Chinese woman working in Gurgaon, a town bordering the Indian
capital, was also reportedly raped by an acquaintance last month.
Indian officials say there is no need for alarm, pointing
out that foreigners are victims of crime the world over and the vast majority
of visitors experience no safety problems. But travel advice from a host of
countries stresses the need for visitors to take care. An advisory from the
Swiss foreign ministry, issued before Friday’s attack, urged men and women
visiting India to travel in large groups and with guides.
The US State Department’s website asks female travelers to
“observe stringent security precautions” and “avoid traveling alone in hired
taxis, especially at night.” Britain’s foreign office updated its advisory for
India on Tuesday, warning female tourists to “exercise caution when traveling
in India even if they are traveling in a group.”
In a notorious case five years ago, 15-year-old British
schoolgirl Scarlett Keeling was raped and left to die on a beach in the tourist
resort of Goa.
Jensen, who stands out in an Indian crowd with her blonde
hair, recalled how she spent a carefree week backpacking around southern India
a decade ago. But now, traveling with her 10-year-old daughter, it is a
different story and her husband texts her several times a day to check on their
safety.
“There is no question that these stories will have an impact
on foreign visitors,” she said. “Women will prefer to visit other places like
Singapore or Bali or Thailand, where safety is not such a big concern.”
At the Delhi office of the Indian Association of Tour
Operators, executive director Gour Kanjilal said it was unfair to portray India
as dangerous. “Our industry is the first casualty when crime against foreigners
is reported in India, but the reporting does not always reflect the truth,” he
told AFP. “Tourists should be responsible. They should follow some do’s and
don’ts.”
A state minister in Madhya Pradesh, where the attacks on the
Swiss and South Korean tourists took place, told reporters on Sunday that
travelers must inform local police officials whenever they move from one town
to the next. That suggestion is hardly realistic for most tourists like
26-year-old Peruvian Marilu Labarthe, who squeezed in visits to seven cities
during a two-week trip to the country.
Labarthe, shopping for ethnic trinkets in Delhi on the last
day of her vacation, travelled to the country with 11 other women. “You have to
always be careful. And after hearing of these recent incidents, one obviously
feels a sense of fear,” she said, as one of her companions nodded in
agreement.— Ammu Kannampilly
By: Agence
France-Presse
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