As a journalist you often read and write about crime and a point comes when writing the number of dead becomes a routine and you do not feel the loss anymore. In fact you do not find it interesting enough or you do not even consider it a story worth mentioning, if the number of casualties were too low or if the violence was not too brutal. But also there comes a time when words fail you, something so horrendous happens that it does not just touch you; rather it shakes you

On 16 December 2012 six men abused and raped a female student in New Delhi. Their victim is now dead. The unbelievable brutality of the attack has unleashed a nation-wide debate. But that’s not enough. Now, after the death of the 23-year-old student, the young, urban middle class in particular is out on the streets. Many are demanding the death penalty for the six imprisoned rapists, one of whom is a minor. And many are also urging the state to finally do something to better protect women. India’s urban middle class views the state as void of ideas, deeply corrupt and unable to act – as a way for those in power to enrich themselves. 

There is a lot common between Pakistan and India, after all the two nations have hundreds of years of shared history. But while partition of British India in 1947 gave India and Pakistan separate identities, 65 years later, the two nations are still striving to achieve a major goal: the protection of their women citizens from rape.

While activists in Pakistan mourned the recent killing of nurses carrying out a polio vaccination programme, the gang-rape of a 23-year-old medical student in a Delhi bus on December 16 has shaken the Indian nation and touched what the International Herald Tribune called the “deepest chord of discontent”.

Hala Aref is quite active these days on social networking sites to make Egyptian women aware about the possible impacts on their lives due to the controversial constitution. A German alumna and an active voice of the liberal community for the rights of women, Professor Dr. Hala Aref’s Facebook page shows her concerns about the new Egyptian constitution and its probable outcome on her female students at Cairo University.

In the second part of her interview with Sharmeen Obaid and Daniel Junge, Roma Rajpal asks some very fundamental questions about violence against women. It took 18 months to complete the film, after which the filmmakers launched a separate campaign to spread awareness about acid attacks and help the victims.

How much courage and determination does it take for a woman who has been scarred by an acid attack to get back on her feet and fight for justice? Women Talk blogger Roma Rajpal spoke to Oscar-winning filmmakers Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid about their work on the subject.