The woman who collects clothes of sex assault victims

The woman who collects clothes of sex assault victims

Sexual harassment across the world is often followed by victim-blaming and one question survivors are invariably asked is: "What were you wearing?"

Indian artist-activist Jasmeen Patheja collects clothes donated by victims as testament to the fact they are not to blame, reports the BBC's Geeta Pandey.
In a small room in her Bangalore home that has been converted into a museum of sorts are dozens of garments. The kind of clothes we see women around us wearing all the time. But each item has a story.

This is Jasmeen Patheja's collection of the clothes of sex assault survivors.
She says the room in her apartment is a "storage space" for "archiving the garments". She hopes to move them to a studio soon.
One red-and-black jumpsuit was donated by a woman who was caught up in the widespread sexual assaults that took place at New Year's Eve celebrations in Bangalore last year.
"She said she was present at the celebrations when mobs went berserk, groping and assaulting women," Ms Patheja says. "She talked about how she was harassed, about seeking refuge."
Then she holds up a cream-coloured kurta (tunic) with red and black prints - a garment almost startling in its simplicity. It was donated by a woman who was groped while travelling on a train in the southern city of Coimbatore.
There were testimonials from 14 and 16 year olds and also from women in their 30s and 40s and sometimes older.

Almost all women chose to describe what they were wearing at the time of the assault and, Ms Patheja says, that's what gave them the idea about the museum of garments.