Privacy, Confidentiality and Us

A student of TISS, Mumbai was raped on Sunday 12 April by six men. This was widely covered and extensively reported by Media.
The Mumbai Mirror, a popular newspaper of Mumbai, on Friday published the statement made by the victim to the police, and in detail have also published the victims, age, her country of origin, and the course she was enrolled in. As there are not many international students in TISS it was not very difficult for the entire college to know the victims identity. Many organizations and activists have strongly condemned about this violation of the victims right and dignity. The newspaper can argue they have not named her, but they have otherwise revealed her identity. They may have kept the law, but they violated its spirit.”
Closer home in Orissa, disclosing identities of victims and the marginalized is quite common and done without any scruples. PLHIVs identity have regularly been disclosed by the Health Care Providers and Counselors who have access to VCCTC reports. NGOs have regularly disclosed identities of the PLHIV and victims who come to them for help and who they are supposed to protect. Abortion clinics have disclosed identities of young unmarried women who have had abortion.

In fact many of us can come up with more incidents where the law has been violated by revealing identities which should have been protected. I know an incident where so called friends of a gay friend of mine have disclosed his identity to his parents, who were yet to know of this, and he had to go through a lot of pain and humiliation when he was kicked out of his home and his parents’ life, it was harrowing for him.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH US, we are a nation of tattlers and gossip mongers, and our media is like us. We have no respect for individual dignity, nor do we believe that it needs to be protected. Should we not be doing something about it???

Sohamm