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Vrinda Grover
Kassidy Au Cardenas

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Vrinda Grover was born in New Delhi, India 1967 to a poor family. As a child she noticed the wide gap between the rich and the poor people in India, and as she grew up the gap got bigger. As a grown woman she decided to “be the change you want to see in the world”, so she became a lawyer. She graduated from St. Stephens College, then went on to get her law degree from Delhi University and her masters in law from New York University. After graduating, she used her powers she got from being a lawyer to help women. Mostly she did this by taking on taking cases involving sexual and domestic violence against women and

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children. The main reason why she became so well-known is because she was one of the very few that took those cases and stood up for the victims.
Sooner or later Grover was fed up with no one taking notice of the extreme numbers of women and children being abused, especially by their own government. The government was not willing to help the people who needed help the most. Vrinda Grover was given an opportunity to do some good and take advantage of the attention that was being given to one case. This opportunity came with the brutal rape of a women on a moving bus known as the
Delhi rape, which the government couldn’t turn a blind eye to. Grover was among the few prosecutors that showed up. Her adamancy in this case to reform the laws is how she has become so respected in India. But that didn’t completely get the governments attention and
Grover persistently proceeded to get their attention by staging rally’s and demonstrations and eventually working her way up to TV and radio appearances.

In 2010 she made a huge move for human rights by helping to pass the “Prevention of
Torture Bill, 2010”. She did this while working with the United Nations. The bill “provides punishment for the infliction of torture by public servants or any person inflicting torture.”
This bill will apply to all of India and be effective as soon as it’s passed. She strongly believes that the court system needs to be overhauled and rebuilt to give proper justice to rape victims.
This is where her main focus is and what she has been working towards.
The torture bill wasn’t the only bill she was involved in she did multiple others. Of course mostly involving women and children. The 2013 Criminal Law Amendment of the law

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against sexual assault; the protection of children from sexual offences act, 2012. “She also is active in the UN human rights mechanisms including the universals periodic review and UN special rapporteurs.” She is also a member of the UN women India civil society advisory group, a bureau member of South Asians for human rights.
The Delhi rape case caused outrage throughout all of India. Protests were held throughout India, drawing the world’s attention to the cases and India’s unjust judicial system against women. The court system and government and eventually convicted the four men and the bus driver involved with the rape. All getting three years in a juvenile correction facility. The bus driver was convicted before the others and was found later hanging in his jail cell. A month after they were convicted judge Yogesh Khanna handed down the sentence of death by hanging. The main reasons the government hasn’t passed revolutionary laws involving rape are because of all the false accusations there afraid they’ll get. Most of the current claims are parents angry that their child has eloped and the reason why most aren’t taken serious. Grover believes that if people stood up for others and tried to stop “bullying’ then rape violence will stop. Now women are taking a stand saying “its my body, my right, please don’t have anything to do without my consent.” The sexual offences act of 2003 in UK gives life in prison to people who penetratively sexually assault another by any part of the body or object. This is

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what Grover is working towards; especially women in the lower class. They seem to be looked over, attacks and human trafficking only seem to matter if it’s in the upper class.
Grover is one of the most respected human’s rights activists. She saw there was problem in India as a young child and decided to do something about it; and when she grew up she did. She’s raised awareness of the abuse of women and children. She’s drawn awareness too the huge gap between the rich and poor and the unfairness the lower class is treated. She’s of the few that have tried to change the laws of prosecution of rape. Its why she is so respected in the activist world and the everyday world.

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I think that Vrinda Grover is an influential person. Vrinda is also very brave for being so out spoken in such poverty ridden and dangerous place like new Delhi. It is not acceptable for a woman to speak or even argue with the government law system. I believe that she is the first woman in India to actually speak up for all the woman who are getting raped on the streets.
The government is mainly filled with all men, there are very little women is the Indian governmental system. Also Vrinda is now, one of the head honchoes in the supreme court due to pride, and courage, she spoke out for all the woman in india. Also her education got her far in life. She went to two colleges, one in America and one in India, she got her law degree in
America, to be able to protect people in the united states. Also she got her one in india so people wouldn’t just push her aside because she didn’t have an education.