This Delhi resident knew the horrifying details of his friend being sexually abused by her employer but felt helpless to stop it — a phenomenon sociologists call the ‘bystander effect’.
He told Brut India what happened and how he struggled to grapple with it.
He told Brut India what happened and how he struggled to grapple with it.
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00:00I was about to fight this guy and make him come out with all the things that he used
00:19to do which is not acceptable socially.
00:49There was this guy who became my friend and we used to go to the same institute.
00:59Another girl, she was also our classmate and by this time this guy, this other guy had
01:04opened up, started a start-up.
01:08She left her job, whatever she had and she started working full-time with this guy.
01:16He used to punish her for not performing during the day by asking sexual favours.
01:24Whatever he used to watch in porn and whatever he used to fantasise, he wanted her to do
01:30those things.
01:31She told me that I was scared, I was alone and I was too much dependent on that guy.
01:38That's why he could do these things to me.
01:46She told me that she felt very ashamed and very sad and guilty for doing such a thing.
01:53Later on when he asked her to convince another girl to do the same, she had tried to commit
02:02suicide.
02:03I was about to fight this guy and make him come out with all the things that he used
02:12to do which is not acceptable socially.
02:14After he got to know about the things that I got to know about him, he started ignoring
02:23my calls, he blocked my number.
02:25This girl had gone through a lot of mental trauma which affected her career.
02:30At last after like 7-8 months, she was starting to overcome him.
02:44The MeToo movement gave me some courage to speak up.
02:56The victim and the aggressor both don't talk about it in public and the aggressor would
03:04make sure that these things don't reach out to anyone else except between them.