Month: November 2019

One in three women worldwide faces violence. But in a post-MeToo era, conversation around sexual violence is in the open and so is the need for change.

Globally one in three and, in South Asia, 37% of women face some form of violence: Physical, emotional, financial and, increasingly, online(Raj K Raj/HTphoto)

Women have been told to be many things – patient, accommodating, docile even. Now, for the first time on an international platform, they are being told to be angry.

Not that they needed prompting. Anger was in evidence at the regional Beijing +25 conference held this week in Bangkok where UN Women deputy executive director Anita Bhatia told an audience of 500 ministers, policy-makers and civil rights organisers from 35 countries, “Be angry. Ask your government for change.” She was speaking at the launch of 16 days of activism that focus on violence against women after hearing two moving testimonies, the first from actress and model Cindy Bishop and the second from Mumbai-based rape survivor Natasha Noel.

“You cannot remain silent,” Noel said. She spoke of the need to teach children about sexual abuse. Bishop’s anger was sparked by a March 2018 Thai government campaign advising women to dress modestly during the Songkran (new year) festival. She had been assaulted at the festival 23 years ago and said 60% of women who attend are sexually assaulted, regardless of what they wear, but only 25.8% report it. Her post “Don’t tell me how to dress” kicked off Thailand’s MeToo movement.

“Violence against women and girls is ingrained all over the world,” said UN special rapporteur on violence Dubravka Simonovic. “Why aren’t we talking about it as an emergency?”

Globally, one in three and, in South Asia, 37% of women face some form of violence — physical, emotional, financial and, increasingly, online. According to the National Crime Records Bureau data for 2017, crimes against women in India were up 6% compared to the previous year with 27.9% of cases filed as “cruelty by husband and his relatives”. A third of 32,559 rape cases involved minor victims.

The post-MeToo era with offshoots in China, Japan, Korea, India and Pakistan has opened conversation about sexual assault. Also under discussion are entrenched patriarchal systems that result in sloppy legal justice, victim-blaming and stigmatisation that cloak perpetrators with impunity.

The 16-day campaign advocates for a global redefining of rape laws that focus on active consent rather than the use of force. But there is need also to dispel stereotypes on the role of women in society that go beyond legislation to include media and popular culture.

To do that, governments and civil society activists, teachers and parents, entertainers and public figures must get down to the really hard work of education — not as a one-off life skills class, but an unrelenting, concerted campaign with a clear message of ending violence against women and girls.

“We are angry,” said Indonesian activist Vica Larasati. The anger isn’t just about shrinking spaces for human rights, regression on sexual and reproductive health rights and the rise of macho nationalism. It is anger over how little has changed 25 years after the Beijing conference set gender equality as a goal. Yes, it’s time to get angry.

Namita Bhandare writes on gender

The views expressed are personal

India has the largest number of underage brides in the world and 26.8% of girls marry before they are 18 . This is the age of consent under a 2012 amendment, which makes even those under 18, in consensual relationships, vulnerable to parental backlash, with boyfriends and husbands branded as sex offenders.

The story of adolescent girls and their quest for love is rarely told(Manoj Kumar/Hindustan Times)

They met at a wedding; she was 16 and he was 18. They exchanged numbers and were soon in love. When Anju’s father started looking for a match for her, she told her mother about her boyfriend, Prem. Her father fixed a match anyway. Anju eloped, her father filed a case, Prem was arrested, and Anju was packed off to a shelter home where she discovered she was pregnant. She gave birth to a boy and is now waiting to turn 18 when she can be reunited with her husband, now out on bail. Her parents say she is dead to them.

The story of adolescent girls and their quest for love is rarely told. These are girls who live with inflexible rules that restrict their mobility and access to technology; are burdened with housework with barely any time for leisure and friendship; and live with parents who enforce cultural norms about sexual purity and filial obedience. It is this isolation that makes so many so receptive to love.

This often tangled intersection of teenage assertion, sexuality, cultural norms and the law, has, for the first time, been the subject of an investigation, Why Girls Run Away to Get Married, by Partners for Law in Development (PLD), with research partners including the HAQ Centre for Child Rights and Vishakha.

The study examines 15 girls from low to middle-income families, chosen because of the intervention of social workers, police and shelter homes. But the spread of “love” cases is far wider. One Delhi police station reported receiving up to five such cases every fortnight.

India has the largest number of underage brides in the world and 26.8% of girls marry before they are 18 . This is the age of consent under a 2012 amendment, which makes even those under 18, in consensual relationships, vulnerable to parental backlash, with boyfriends and husbands branded as sex offenders.

Globally, there is a tendency is to view all underage marriages as forced. The race to meet Sustainable Development Goals to eliminate child marriage by 2030 is resulting in laws that paint all such marriages as a violation. Karnataka has already amended the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act to declare all underage marriages void.

But the 2006 child marriage law is more nuanced, differentiating between types of underage marriage. So, kidnapping and trafficking have no legal validity, but there is leeway for many others. “Labelling every marriage of a girl younger than 18 as ‘forced’ is not reflective of reality or even of the girl whom policy responses seek to protect,” says PLD executive director Madhu Mehra.

Not every love story ends happily. Chitra ran off to marry her boyfriend who was from a different religion. The couple moved to her village where they thought they would live peacefully. But the community refused to accept them and they faced with unemployment and insults.

The husband took to drugs and eventually left. Chitra remains estranged from her parents.

Namita Bhandare writes on gender

The views expressed are personal