MEXICO: One of the world’s most powerful women – Melinda Gates has for the first time spoken out against the recent spate of rapes and sexual attacks on women in India and has revealed that initial results coming out from surveys conducted by her foundation confirm that the menace of domestic violence in India is much higher than estimated by the government.

In an exclusive interview to the Times of India, Gates who was recently announced as the third most powerful woman in the Forbes list said, “what is happening in India is horrific,” pointing to increasing reports of rape of even toddlers.

Gates, who donated $3.9 billion in 2014 to philanthropy and donated to the tune of more than $33 billion in grant payments since she founded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with her husband in 2000, said that India immediately needs to conduct a national-level survey to gauge the actual burden of violence on women, even in their households.

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According to her, recent surveys conducted in northern Indian states by her foundation has found that the prevalence of violence on women is very high, even inside their homes.

Speaking to TOI on the sidelines of the Global Maternal New born Health conference, Melinda said, “we need to empower women. And, it’s finally happening in India. The press now-a-days is talking about women empowerment vociferously. The international community is talking about it and it’s being exposed. The first way to get change is to shed light on an issue.”

She added, “To see not just cases held up in courts but some of the more prominent ones coming through with results, that’s exactly what India has to do. I think civil society needs to keep putting pressure on these issues and bring them to light.”

“I was just talking to the former minister of health in Mexico because one of the things they looked at around women’s health is the violence aspect, because in Mexico, there is a machismo kind of attitude among men. They knew there was violence but they did not know how much. So they set about doing an entire survey in the country on domestic violence and the rate was so much higher than they expected. The government then said they want a policy against such violence and they then brought cases to light, followed up, created shelters where women could go with their children, so that they could leave the situation and prepare themselves to go back to jobs. Those are exactly the kind of things we got to do in India as well.”

Melinda added, “India needs to start collecting real time data about how much violence is going on in the household. In some of the states in northern India, we are just starting to measure the prevalence of domestic violence and it is extremely common.”

Melinda’s comments come days after Hollywood star Meryl Streep backed a documentary which is banned by Indian authorities about the high-profile rape of a young woman on a moving bus in New Delhi.

Violence against women is rampant in India. The National Family Health Survey-III, which interviewed 1.25 lakh women in 28 states during 2005-06, reported over 40% of women being beaten by their husbands at some point of time. Over 51% of the 75,000 men interviewed didn’t find anything wrong in assaulting their wives.

More shockingly, around 54% of the women surveyed thought that such violence was justified on one ground or the other. An earlier study done by Harvard on domestic violence in India had made another major finding — children of women beaten up or abused by husbands were 21% more likely to die before turning 5.

READ THIS IN HINDI: भारत में रेप की घटनाएं भयावह — मिलिंडा गेट्स

