Last week, a Danish woman reported to the police that she had been gang raped while travelling in New Delhi. This, combined with the rape of a young German charity worker earlier that week, has elevated sexual violence in India to the main topic of discussion in worldwide news cycles. Largely in response to media coverage, the United Kingdom, Canada and France have all issued travel warnings on account of an apparent rape threat for those planning to visit India. Amidst the recent hysteria over seemingly rampant sexual violence, the number of women visiting India has dropped 35 percent. But is the reaction warranted?

Stories and reports have effectively categorized India as a danger zone, and the branding serves only to instill fear in foreign women and portray Indian women as weak victims. With continuous reports of gang rapes and violence against Indian women, as well as foreign visitors in cities like Kolkata, New Delhi and Mumbai, it’s easy to overlook the data showing that the United States, not India, leads the world in sexual assault and rape by a significant margin.

Comparing countries is a slippery slope, of course, because women are less likely to report rapes to the police in India than in more progressive nations. Yet, with high rates across the board, it seems that instances of sexual violence in India are not more severe than those in the United States or United Kingdom, despite how the cases have been framed in the media. Barring the occasional Steubenville case, reports of gang rape and assault frequently go unmentioned in national U.S. news coverage, while Indian news sources have excessively covered each report of rape following the initial surge in international outrage over the fatal 2012 attack in Delhi.

Since then, reports of rape have increased in India. Rather than merely raising red flags for some, these reports indicate that the situation is improving as women are becoming more comfortable coming forward to report a crime. Between January and October of 2013, 1,330 rapes were reported in New Delhi in comparison to the 706 reported for all of 2012.

While India continues to battle with gender violence brought on by an ingrained caste system, foreigners are being indoctrinated with inaccurate ideas concerning the safety of India’s cities and are being told that any woman is constantly in danger of an attack. Although undoubtedly affected by a cultural landscape that disenfranchises women, intense protests by Indian women and men against sexual violence prove that Indians are refusing to accept not only the condition of police corruption and victim-blaming in their country, but also the international demonization of India as a nation of wild rapists and helpless victims.

Perpetuating phrases such as “rape capital of the world” and tagging them onto distant places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa and now India is a testament to a long history of Western media’s fondness for marginalizing and labeling countries that lie east. Continuing to sideline an entire culture and propagate an atmosphere of fear in India will only delay the changes for which many Indians are campaigning.

Nina Golshan is a deputy opinion editor. Email her at [email protected].