A woman interviewed 100 convicted rapist, you won't believe what she learned

A woman named Madhumita Pandey interviewed 100 convicted rapist in India for her doctoral thesis research at the criminology department of Anglia Ruskin University in the United Kingdom. She started her research first as a pilot project months after the 2012 Delhi Gang rape case, where a medical student (Nirbhaya - fearless) was raped and brutally beaten up on her way home. She succembed to her injuries a week after.

According to a report in Washington Post, Pandey spent weeks talking to convicted rapist in Delhi's Tihar Jail. Most of the criminals she met were uneducated, many of them have not even completed high school education.

“When I went to research, I was convinced these men are monsters. But when you talk to them, you realize these are not extraordinary men, they are really ordinary. What they’ve done because of upbringing and thought process,” the Washington Post quoted her as said.

As far as equality is concerned, even educated families are not very much aware about the idea. Even educated women are restricted to traditional works at times, feels Pandey.

“Men are learning to have false ideas about masculinity, and women are also learning to be submissive,” she explained.

Pandey said that while talking to some of the rapists she realised that the problem was in the thinking process and upbringing that these men had.

“After you speak to [the rapists], it shocks you — these men have the power to make you feel sorry for them. As a woman that’s not how you expect to feel. I would almost forget that these men have been convicted of raping a woman. In my experience, a lot of these men don’t realize that what they've done is rape. They don't understand what consent is.”

“There were only three or four who said we are repenting. Others had found a way to put their actions into some justification, neutralize, or blame action onto the victim,” she said.

There was 49-year-old man who felt guilty about raping a 5-year-old girl mostly because he thinks that no one is going to marry her now. Shockingly, he told Pandey that, ‘I would accept her, I will marry her when I come out of jail.”

Madhumita Pandey is likely to publish her research paper in the upcoming month.