Phyllis
Chesler, Ph.D, is an Emerita Professor of Psychology
and Women’s Studies at City University of New
York. She is a best-selling author, a legendary feminist
leader. This article first appeared in her newsletter:
https://phyllis-chesler.com
I am a real fan of the “Delhi Crime” series,
an Indian police procedural, livestreamed on Netflix.
The film ficitionalizes three well known crimes committed
in India, including the infamous gang rape and torture-murder
of 23 year old Jyoti Singh on a bus. The current third
season focuses on sex and human trafficking in India,
which includes the kidnapping of orphans and other very
vulnerable children, including toddlers. Also true but
tragic is the fact that some impoverished parents (invariably
illiterate and starving), sell their children for money–but
after being promised that the child will have a much
better life.
Deputy Commissioner (”Madam Sir”), Vartika
Chatorvedi, is played by the great Shefali Shah. Oh,
how I want her in my corner. She is strong, serious,
almost grim-faced, unstoppable, but also maternally
compassionate even as she remains utterly determined
to rescue the the enslaved, to capture their tormenters
and to find justice for those murdered.
Some
gangs maim the toddlers and children and turn them into
beggars. Some teach these totally innocent pre-adolescents
how to wear makeup, prance about like strippers or models,
and then sell them to pimps. In other words, they get
paid for sending their captives to Hell.
“Delhi Crime’s” third season features
the women who buy the girls and prepare them for a life
of sexual slavery. They are very physically–almost
unbelivably cruel to those in their clutches. The main
Madam/Pimp, the ringleader of the criminal enterprise,
is smart, fearless, reckless, beautiful, and as hard
as they come. She is, essentially, a slaver: selfish,
homicidal, and quick-on-the-trigger; her character is
also a very good liar, a weaver of tales, a good actress.
Her name is Meena and she is brilliantly portrayed by
Huma Qureshi.
Meena is an Indian street version of every Madam that
has ever lived in every country on earth, including
America. How is Ghislaine Maxwell “allegedly”
any different? How are the teenagers whom Maxwell “allegedly”
drafted into procuring other and sometimes ever-younger
girls any different from the formerly young Indian children
whom the cinematic Meena trains and controls; their
job is to train the latest batch of victim, ready them
for Hell?
In a sense, how far apart are they from the American
mothers who eroticize their four to six year-old daughters
into competing on TV in something called “Toddler
and Tiaras?” They, too, teach their little girls
how to prance about like adult strippers and 1950’s
era Playboy centerfolds; they apply heavy,
adult makeup on their daughters. Someone suggested that
I see this–and so I did, but only once, and for
no more than fifteen or twenty minutes. I’d seen
enough. Even as a psychologist and the author of “Woman’s
Inhumanity to Woman,” I must admit: I do not fully
understand these mothers. Do you? Is trying to re-live
their own youth by obscenely exploiting their children
a form of madness–or is it also a rather pathetic
form of evil?
And so, the reigning Epstein drama is only a drop in
the bucket in terms of the world-wide exploitation of
children (mainly girls but also boys); their being trafficked
by enormous poverty, family abuse, including incest,
and sent right into the arms of both male and female
pimps–and/or into forced and arranged marriages?
“Delhi Crime’s” Meena, the ringleader
of the criminal trafficking gang, defiantly, cleverly
demands that “Madam Sir,” the Deputy Police
Commissioner, answer just such questions.
How would you respond?
also by Phyllis Chesler
Female
Serial Killers: Few and Far Between
Worse
Than the Earthquake
Trouble Is My Name
Meditation by the Sea
Jihadists Are Not Mentally IllNew
New York's Public Bathrooms
Perils of Non-Violent Islam
Orgasm
Meditation Movement
Gender
Gangsterism
O
Malala
High
Fashion & Boyish Bodies
Tar:
Film Review
Female
Refugees and Male Baggage
Self-Defense
Against Rape
I
Am Frightened for us Women
Remember
the Taliban
The
Writing Life
Transgender
Bending
Femicide:
A Form of Honour Killing
Secular
Islam on the Rise
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