Listening now
There is a severe paucity of counselling services for survivors of sexual violence in India. Organisations like CEHAT and RAHI are trying to plug a gigantic gap in the mental health system in India
The importance of women’s agency
Enhancing women’s status and power can have huge benefits, said Amartya Sen, pointing to Bangladesh, which performs better than India on many social indicators, including sex ratios
Not on our bodies anymore
Violence against women is on the rise in Bengal, but the state authorities are dismissing recent cases of sexual assault as ‘conspiracies’ by ‘liars’. What really has changed since the Mathura rape case 30 years ago, asks Rajashri Dasgupta
Impact of the Vishaka Judgment
While a legislation on sexual harassment seems imminent, the Vishaka Judgment on sexual harassment at the workplace has, over the last 15 years, leapt out of the statute books and deeply influenced policy and practice in institutions and offices
Women map their lives
The women of Itaha Kalpi, a drought-hit village in Bundelkhand, UP, came together across caste lines to map water and other resources available in their village in rangoli, and then on paper. In the process, the barefoot cartographers also learnt to map their inequities, their aspirations and demands, and began to voice these
Tendu leaf binding centres: No place for pregnant women
The Orissa government earns crores from the tendu leaf trade. But the poor women employed in the binding centres work 12 hours a day for less than minimum wages. Pregnant women, who work these long hours without adequate drinking water or sanitation facilities and no healthcare, are the worst-affected
MMS porn clips: The dark side of technology
Cyber gender crimes are on the rise in India. But how are these crimes to be policed and prevented, and why has there been not a single conviction in such a case so far?
'Men also need to be liberated from patriarchy'
Efforts to tackle gender-based violence against women in India have concentrated on empowering women to assert themselves and prevent violence. Men have been insulated from the process of transformation, says Harish Sadani of Men Against Violence and Abuse. Until men are seen as part of the solution, the status of women will not change significantly
Abandoned and divorced: The NRI pattern
Two out of 10 NRI marriages reportedly end with the wife being abandoned. India has no laws that protect wives whose NRI husbands get ex parte divorces and custody of children. Will government’s decision to issue two valid passports to women marrying abroad help this situation?
Medieval practices in a modern state
Three members of a family were hacked to death under the gaze of an entire village because their witchcraft was believed to be responsible for the death of a young girl. This is one of three such incidents in recent times in a village just 14 miles from Jharkhand's state capital, Ranchi, which itself has seen 240 murders of ‘witches’ in the past 10 years
Singur's women: From warriors to worriers
In Singur following the exit of the Tatas, with no farmland returned and no land development either, landless agricultural labourers were the first to slip into the ‘food unsecured’ category, followed by sharecroppers, fisher folk and marginal landowners. Most affected in each category have been the women
Women at work: The betel nut crackers
A photo-essay on the poor, lower-caste, mostly non-literate women of Karnataka who labour undocumented and unrecognised behind the scenes of the multi-crore betel nut industry
All aboard the ladies special
More than 80% of women in Delhi say they are sexually harassed on public transport. The paternal administration’s only response is to further sexualise public spaces by offering ladies special buses with curtains to protect women from the male gaze
'Criminalising the client will cause prostitution to drop by 80%': Catharine MacKinnon
Leading American feminist Catharine MacKinnon makes a strong case for criminalising the client and not the sex worker
New vistas for working women in India's IT industry
By 2010 60% of graduates across Asia, America and Europe will be women. At its third annual IT Women Leadership Summit held recently in Bangalore, India's premier trade body NASSCOM declared that workplace diversity and gender inclusion is a business imperative today
Why is the women's movement silent on abortion?
The Union Ministry of Health is examining the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act with a view to raising the time limit for abortion from 20 weeks to 24 weeks. What would the moral and ethical implications of this move be? And why has the women’s movement in India been strangely silent on these important developments?
Maharashtra's age-of-marriage competition
58% of girls in Maharashtra first conceive at 15-19 years. Following the success of an IHMP initiative which saw a three-fold increase in the use of contraceptives, delay in the median age of conception by a year, and a reduction in post-natal complications and reproductive tract infections, the Maharashtra government will reward villages that succeed in raising the age of marriage for girls
The song, dance and sorrows of sex workers' lives
VAMP, a sex workers' collective, aims to ensure that marginalised communities like women in prostitution and transgenders can assert, articulate and access their rights. They couldn't have come up with a better way of articulating their concerns than My Mother, The Gharwali, Her Maalak, His Wife, a play devised and performed by the sex workers themselves
Murdered for Love
'Honour' killings of young people who marry outside their caste are making front-page news every day. Even as the administration and local politicians look the other way, some courageous women have raised their voices and filed cases against the perpetrators of these barbaric acts
Trafficking women for domestic work
Many 'employment agencies' that are springing up in cities to place migrant women for domestic work are little more than traffickers. The condition in which these women work violates several laws including the Bonded Labour Act and in many cases the Child Labour and Juvenile Justice Act. Activists are calling for a specific law to regulate the domestic work sector
Mistress of indigenous flavours
Triveni Devangan, daughter of a farmer in Chhattisgarh, set up an ice-cream factory a little over two years ago with a loan of Rs 22 lakh. Today, her factory has an annual turnover of over Rs 20 lakh. Her products sell in six districts of Chhattisgarh, with her signature flavours being most in demand
The land is ours!
Around half of all agricultural land in India is now farmed by women, as more and more men migrate to earn money. Yet the slow pace of land and property rights reform has failed to keep up. Although women may have more rights on paper than they did 20 years ago, there has been little progress on the ground
Brick by brick
Twelve illiterate tribal women belonging to a self-help group set up their own brick kiln, changing the power structure in their village in the process
Delays do not bode well for Domestic Violence Bill
Domestic violence is spiralling: 7 lakh cases are expected to be registered in this year. But India's path-breaking new Domestic Violence Act, passed last year, has not yet been notified. Activists in the capital met recently to demand that the government notify and implement the law
Supporting the ban: Bar girls are often trafficked
A study by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences' Prayas project supports the controversial 2005 ban on bar dancers in Mumbai on the grounds that there is often an element of human trafficking involved in the entry of these women into the dance bars. The majority of women spoken to were not, in fact, exercising free choice and the right to livelihood but had been duped by middlemen
Penalising clients of sex workers: Pros and cons
Will the amendments to the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act proposed by the government protect sex workers from exploitation at the hand of clients and police, or will it end up making them more vulnerable?
Sting operation to find 'missing' girl-child
Sting operations are not conducted by the media and law-enforcement agencies alone. The Satara-based CSO, Dalit Mahila Vikas Mandal, has nabbed seven doctors red-handed for violating the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act and revealing the sex of foetuses
Dancers in the dark
As three bar dancers commit suicide in Mumbai following the ban on dance bars in Maharashtra, an SNDT study busts several myths about the working conditions, backgrounds and lifestyles of these
Delhi's skewed sex ratio: "24,000 girls go missing every year"
Delhi's sex ratio has become more and more skewed over the years. One study of families which already have one or more daughters shows just 219 girls being born for every 1,000 boys
The rot in Orissa's reproductive health services
At a recent public hearing in Orissa's Jagatsinghpur district, both men and women told harrowing tales of negligence, bungling and lack of facilities in the state's public healthcare system
Women panchayat members: Catapulted into the public domain
More than a decade after the 73rd constitutional amendment made it mandatory for 33% of all panchayat seats to be reserved for women, have women begun to play a significant role in local self-governance?
'Treating infanticide as homicide is inhuman'
Prosecuting women such as Karuppayee, the first woman in Tamil Nadu to be convicted of female infanticide, is hardly the answer to the problem of female infanticide and foeticide, says P Pavalam, state-level convenor of the Madurai-based coalition NGO Campaign Against Sex Selective Abortion (CASSA). The role of the state and society in perpetuating the secondary status of women is the real issue to be addressed
Female foeticide: The collusion of the medical establishment
The PCPNDT Act prohibits sex selection by any means, before or after conception. But, as one survey in Chennai of 29 ultrasound clinics found, for the medical fraternity it's business as usual
SANGRAM: A war for all women
SANGRAM sees women in prostitution not as potential carriers of HIV/AIDS but as agents of change. The organisation and its peer educators work in six districts of Maharashtra and Karnataka's border areas
Voices of women in prostitution
Women of the SANGRAM collective for women in prostitution in Sangli meet regularly to discuss issues and problems. All have stories to tell about their lives and their profession
The sinister targets of Indian health camps
At Usayini in Uttar Pradesh, some 'health camps' funded by USAIDS are really places where local midwives are pushed to bring women in for sterilisation. There is absolutely no attempt to provide all-round reproductive health care. This approach flies in the face of India's official policy of target-free family planning
Dowry spreads its tentacles across India
A major new survey involving 10,000 respondents reports that the practice of dowry is becoming prevalent amongst dalit, backward caste, Muslim and Christian communities, which never had a tradition of dowry in the past. Even matriarchal societies, which earlier paid a bride price, are now demanding dowry from the bride's family
Maa Bambaleshwari! Chhattisgarh's women have taken charge
One million women in the newly-formed state of Chhattisgarh have formed 76,000 self-help groups and are now running the weekly bazaars, the fisheries and even the stone quarries
Short Stay Homes: A reality check
A new study of 22 of Orissa's 32 Short Stay Homes for deserted and destitute women reports trafficking of some of the inmates, cramped living conditions and inadequate vocational training and counselling
No more discussion on the Women's Reservation Bill, say activists
Women's activists are aghast at the suggestion that the women's reservation bill can only be passed if double-member constituencies are introduced in a third of all parliamentary seats. This will only send out the message that women MPs are incompetent, they claim
India's school for 'ideal' wives
In Bhopal, young girls attend a course that teaches them that all marital problems stem from wives who don't know how to keep their egos and tempers in check. Here they learn how to surrender to the patriarchal forces in society, keep their heads covered at all times, and have sex only for procreation!
Cash can't end discrimination
Will the recently announced cash incentives to poor mothers giving birth to girls really help to discourage female infanticide, female foeticide or the pervasive neglect of girl-children?
Mum's the word
In a society which reveres motherhood, deifies the mother in mythology and popular cinema, mothers in India have hardly any legal rights over their children. The Tamil Nadu order making it mandatory for schools to list the mother as joint or sole guardian of the child, is a small but significant change
Legislating for change: Articulating women's rights
Various legislations pertaining to women's rights are hanging fire, including the one on sexual harassment at the workplace. Others such as the Protection from Domestic Violence Bill 2002 are glaring examples of the co-option and dilution of serious issues
The benefits of advocacy on women's rights
Chandni Joshi, regional programme director, South Asia, of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the women's fund of the United Nations, talks about the impact of globalisation on women, and the difference that advocacy has made to the way women's rights are perceived
Women workers demand visibility and a voice
On March 8, 1908, women workers in the needle trade in New York marched in the streets, demanding suffrage and an end to sweatshops and child labour. Almost 100 years on, over 100,000 workers took to the streets of New Delhi this February, to register their protest against the government's anti-worker policies and the severe impact of liberalisation on women workers
Sex selection: Getting down to business
An estimated 20 million females in this country have been eliminated following sex-determination tests. But not a single doctor has been convicted. It is the providers of this technology who have to be held ethically as well as legally accountable. Will the recent amendment to the PNDT Act change anything?
Adverse sex ratio results in no brides in Rohtak
Decades of female foeticide and infanticide have finally caught up with the people of Haryana. With the sex ratio in Rohtak district down to 796 females per 1000 males and the rest of the state faring not much better, young men are desperate to get married but cannot find themselves brides
Baluben and Monghiben take charge
With guidance from the NGO Utthan, women from traditional, feudal households in Saurashtra, Gujarat, are taking charge -- promoting water harvesting, ousting moneylenders and insisting that development projects provide employment to local villagers
Shabana:'I have the right to sell my body - and I will sell it'
What does it mean to be a woman in prostitution? What does it mean to sell sex? In a first-person excerpt from 'Unzipped: Women and Men in Prostitution Speak Out', recently published by Point of View, Mumbai, the feisty Shabana, who works the highways on the Karnataka-Maharashtra border, but also distributes condoms in collaboration with two voluntary agencies, opens up to the reader her world of exploitation, survival, empowerment, victimhood and choice.
The testimonies of the men and women who speak out in 'Unzipped' chip away at the myth that those in prostitution are eternal victims -- with no power to deal with the situations in which they find themselves. They also tell us that it is not just poverty that forces women into prostitution, but poverty acting in concert with gender. Until we stop marrying young girls off, until we stop burning, harassing and discriminating against young girls in ways big and small, the family will not be a safe place for young girls. The family will be a place to run away from...into the arms of a pimp, a shyster, or even a distant relative who is a gateway to prostitution.
Heat and dust, struggle and success
Travelling through the villages of Gujarat, Huned Contractor finds that women have shrugged off the tradition of centuries to assume the dual roles of wage-earners and housewives. Women who had never travelled outside their villages now speak about their work at international fora. Harijan women who had to sit on the floor now proudly occupy the chair of the deputy sarpanch. It's nothing short of a revolution
Women in white: India's widows
Following the recent announcement that the National Human Rights Commission will now coordinate governmental and non-governmental measures to help the widows of Vrindavan and the rest of the country, this article discusses the situation and problems of widows in India, past and present
