Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called a cabinet meeting on Saturday after returning from the Commonwealth summit, after an eight-year-old girl was gang raped and murdered. This incident caused an outrage in India, much like the 2012 gang Rape of a student on a bus in Dehli, resulting in a new ordinance being approved to amend the laws on sexual violence.

This amendment on the current laws surrounding sexual offences on children changes the minimum penalty for gang rape on a child under 12-years-old to life imprisonment, while also allowing capital punishment. The new laws also expedite the justice system, requiring trials involving children to be completed two months after an arrest is made.

Sexual offences involving children are all too common in India, with a staggering 11,000 cases of child rape reported in 2015 – a report from the UN in 2014 said that one in three victims of rape in India is a child. The recent rape and murder of a eight year old girl sparked outrage in India, after police told the public how she was drugged, held captive for five days, and repeatedly raped at a Hindu temple, and then beaten to death.

Let’s hope this results in less acts of rape and violence, as lawyer Abha Singh said “the conviction rate in rape cases in India was only 28 per cent, implying that 72 out of 100 suspects are going unpunished.”

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