Zoe Brereton, an undergraduate at UQ Law and New Colombo Plan Fellow, was recently published in the International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice, with the article ‘Perpetuating myths of women as false complainants in rape cases in India: culture versus the law’. The work is noteworthy for highlighting the need for rigorous empirical research on family and sexual violence in India.
Ms Brereton describes how 19th-century colonial views of justice still influence how the law is practised, despite being written very differently in the books. According to Ms Brereton, the problem stems from the wider Indian society viewing female rape complainants as inherently distrustful, and of having ulterior motives.
