Related video: Shock in India over new gang rape case 0:36
New Delhi (CNN) --
A judge in southern India ruled that a woman was wearing "provocative" clothing, effectively dismissing her claim of sexual assault, sparking public outcry in the country, where violence against women and girls. girls is frequent news.
The district court judge in Kerala state made the comments last week in granting early bail to a 74-year-old man accused of sexual harassment and assault, according to court documents.
He had not been formally charged.
Photographs produced with the man's bail application show the woman in "sexually (sic) provocative" clothing, the court order says, adding that the court's first impression was that her complaint "does not... would hold" against the defendant.
It was also "impossible to believe" that the disabled man could "force" the woman to sit on his lap and "sexually press on her chest," the court order says.
India frees 11 men convicted of gang-raping pregnant Muslim woman
CNN contacted the man's lawyer, but had not received a response at the time of publication of this text.
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The news sparked outrage in India, where women face widespread discrimination and allegations of sexual assault often go unreported due to a lack of legal recourse and a notoriously slow legal system.
The chairwoman of the Delhi Commission for Women, Swati Maliwal, condemned the district judge and urged the Kerala High Court to take up the case.
"When will the mentality that blames victims of sexual abuse change?" Maliwa tweeted on Wednesday.
VP Sanu, president of the All India Students Federation, called the judge's comments "regressive".
"The logic that women invite sexual assault by their clothing is both victim blaming and invoking rape victim stereotypes," she wrote on Twitter Wednesday.
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The problem of sexual assault in India
Sex crimes against women are widespread in India, but brutal cases of rape and assault are often poorly handled in the country's justice system.
In 2017, a Delhi High Court judge said a man deserved "the benefit of the doubt" in acquitting him of rape charges, adding that a "weak 'no'" could still indicate willingness on the part of an alleged victim. .
In another case in January 2021, a Bombay High Court judge found a 39-year-old man not guilty of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl because he had not removed his clothes, meaning no skin contact. to skin
"Considering the severity of the punishment provided for the crime, in the judgment of this court, more stringent evidence and serious allegations are required," the judge said.
Following the brutal gang rape of a medical student in Delhi in 2012, legal reforms and harsher penalties for gang rape were introduced, including fast-track courts to get rape cases through the justice system quickly and a revised definition of rape to include anal and oral penetration.
But activists and lawyers say more must be done to protect women.
On Monday, 11 men jailed for life for the gang rape of a pregnant Muslim woman during the Hindu-Muslim riots in 2002 were released on remission, drawing condemnation from family, lawyers and politicians in the victim.
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