India’s Unstoppable Sexual Assault Crisis: Our Urgent Warning to Travelers
We’ve been shedding light on what is arguably one of India’s worst-kept secrets, and now, the United States State Department has underscored our grave concerns with a new travel advisory. Issued on June 16th, this Level Two advisory is not about unsanitary food or scams; it explicitly warns travelers, especially women, to exercise increased caution due to a sharp increase in sexual assault. This deeply disturbing trend has made sexual assault the fastest-growing crime in the country.
Our findings indicate that even areas typically considered safe offer little protection. Tourist areas, resorts, malls, transit centers, and beaches are all highlighted as unsafe, and unfortunately, Airbnbs and hotels provide no guaranteed security. The timing of this official warning was far from arbitrary; just one day before the advisory, a 20-year-old student was reportedly assaulted by 10 local men, and mere hours before our video was filmed, a French tourist reportedly endured a similar horrific experience.
We’ve extensively covered how public sentiment surrounding India’s sexual assault problem reached a fever pitch last March. This followed a horrific incident involving two Spanish tourists—a couple on a mission to visit every country in the world. Within 24 hours of their arrival in India, they were brutally attacked, robbed, and the woman was sexually assaulted by seven men. What’s particularly striking is that this couple had previously traveled through nations like Afghanistan and Pakistan without encountering a single problem, only to face such brutality in India. This incident gained immense viral attention, particularly after an X (formerly Twitter) post by “Slatism” about it garnered over 200 million views.
The virality of this case provided an outlet for others to share their own harrowing experiences in India. Journalist David Valdzkco, for example, gained viral attention after noting that the level of sexual aggression he witnessed while living in India was unlike anything he had encountered anywhere else. He specifically warned women against traveling there alone, stating unequivocally, “I have never met a female traveler who has not been groped or attacked or worse even if they’ve only been in the country for mere days”. Valdzkco recounted an instance where he introduced a female friend to a young Indian man who, instead of shaking her hand, groped her, becoming extremely hostile when she reacted angrily. He has consistently advised female friends against solo travel to India, asserting that this is a “real problem in Indian society that warrants more attention”.
Shockingly, India’s own Commissioner for Women, Miss Sharma, reportedly reacted not with sympathy, but by arguing with Valdzkco and encouraging Indian media to cease covering such cases to protect India’s international image. We’ve also observed a troubling pattern where many Indians themselves have worked to shame anyone discussing these issues, often accusing critics of racism and showing a stark lack of empathy, all in the name of safeguarding the country’s image. There were reports of chat groups forming specifically to mass report accounts that dared to criticize India or discuss these problems. We’ve seen evidence, such as “Indian Cyber Defense” reportedly suspending 73,000 accounts for reporting on Indian behavior.
This response from Indian officials and some citizens has been deeply off-putting, leading many to feel emboldened to openly criticize the country’s sexual assault problem. Disturbing videos have consistently gone viral, showing female tourists being groped, followed, or stared at by groups of men.
While some Indians have claimed that their country’s sexual assault rate is comparable to other nations, dismissing concerns as “racism in disguise,” we believe this perspective misses a crucial point. The stated sexual assault rate in India can be misleading because many acts that would be classified as sexual assault elsewhere are not crimes under Indian law. For instance, marital sexual assault is not a crime in India. We’ve highlighted a horrific recent case where a man was not held accountable for actions against his child-wife that caused her internal injuries because, according to India’s criminal code, he had done “nothing wrong”.
Furthermore, there are documented examples of Indian law enforcement potentially misclassifying sexual assault cases to avoid having them officially on the books. A particularly egregious case from 2018 involved a tourist who traveled to India for a mental health retreat. She was later found decapitated and hung upside down in a forest. Police initially attempted to declassify the incident as a suicide and exclude any sexual assault component. It was only due to her family’s relentless fight for independent forensics that the truth began to emerge.
The constant cover-up and misclassification are deeply disturbing. Listen, American women, you have now been formally warned to avoid traveling to India. We urge you to ignore this warning at your own risk.
