Developing a comprehensive framework for effectively preventing violence against girls and women

As I look back upon this trip to India, I think about the two organizations that I worked with: SNEHA Mumbai and Guria India. Both of them were dealing with the same overarching issue, but they were working on a different part of the problem. While SNEHA was concerned with violence prevention at home and in the streets in the most densely populated slums in the world; Guria was looking at prostitution within and trafficking from Benaras.

Both the cities of Mumbai and Benaras are well known, and on the tourist circuit, though for different reasons. While Mumbai is an economic powerhouse located in the Southern part of the country; Benaras is the iconic holy city of Hindusim located in the 241 million strong (as of 2021) Northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

Decorations by children at Guria’s non-formal education center in Benaras.

Photo credit: Guria India

Why are women and children preyed upon? Let us first look at this from the perspective of the victims. What makes them lucrative victims?

• The inherent innocence of children, both boys and girls below 18, and young women too, make them easy prey. Young women from small cities and villages have the kind of innocence that comes from growing up in a small place where they are exposed to little of what goes on beyond the borders of their village.

• The helplessness of girls and women, not just in terms of being physically weaker, but also being isolated from others who would support them in their time of need. Children are easily threatened into silence. Girls and women who are married enter into their in-laws house and become immediately dependent on their husband and his family. Often girls marry and move to new areas, where they are required to take on their responsibilities as a young bride without complaint. They may have no one to turn in a new environment.

• Dowry is expected by the husband’s family as a societal contract. It is considered a one-time payment made by the girl’s family to the boy’s family so that they are, in effect, compensated for whatever they may have spent on their son’s educa’tion in order to enable him to get a job. This job, in turn, is now supporting them and the bride he brings home. It should therefore, be no surprise, that boys who are earning more demand more dowry. I should add, that the one-time payment is not always treated as a ‘one-time’ affair.

• Girls and women are often financially dependent. Young women who marry into extended families are expected to take up a suitable role as the care-giver within the family, for her children and for elders. While this is not always the case, it is often so in the case of lower income households that young brides are not expected to leave the house and go to work. Whether the husband then chooses to give or withold money from his wife is a decision that is left entirely up to him.

The Indian Flag as depicted by a child at Guria’s non-formal education center.

Photo credit: Guria India

Why do men prey upon women and girls/children? For this too there are many reasons:

• Perhaps not the smallest reason is the fact that they can get away with it. This sense of immunity from the law makes men fearless.

• To add to this, is the sense of being free from criticism. Neither their family, nor society at large, nor even sometimes the wife herself, will criticize the man for beating his wife/child. It is considered as something ‘that a man does’ or ‘a man has a right to do.’ It is socially acceptable.

• Of course, the strongest reason for committing violence upon another is to release one’s own pent-up desire/frustration/anger/confusion/pain. Often, the abuser was once abused himself.

• Acting violent under the influence of alcohol, drugs or due to mental illness is not uncommon either.

• Finally, we have to assume that there is a failing in our educational system, in our societal setup that India today gives birth to so many who lack a sense of empathy and compassion towards others. The ability to lift our hand against someone else implies that you do not consider the other person equally human as yourself.

• It also reveals a true lack of an ethical sense regarding what constitutes right behavior and what is wrong. Lack of this moral sense coupled with an inability to control one’s self will lead to the kind of mental state where the person one is inflicting violence upon is utterly dehumanized and objectified by the perpetrator.

NGOs like SNEHA working with Government officers and bodies like the National Legal Services Authority of Mumbai to educate the female volunteers who are out in the field about the rights of victims and process of redressal.

Photo credit: SNEHA Mumbai

This brings us to ask ourselves, ‘What can be done?’ Obviously, with a problem as multi-pronged as this one, the response cannot be limited either.

• NGOs like SNEHA work with government bodies to ‘sensitize’ them with regard to the problem of violence so they can identify and refer victims correctly. Government bodies include hospitals and the police.

• Law enforcement at the first level, i,e., the police station needs be both more willing to register complaints and follow through on them. Law enforcement at the second level, i.e., the Courts need to have a mechanism for delivering justice within more reasonable time frames than currently exist.

• A strong, many-limbed NGO sector (spread throughout the country; permeating across caste/class lines) that both demands and aids government to deliver justice is necessary to serve as part of the mechanism of checks and balances on power.

• Education of parents so that they are aware of what abuse may look like in their child’s face is essential. What parents don’t understand, they cannot prevent or stop.

• Education of children is equally important. Children must be told so they can understand what is wrong and what is right. Children must understand what is private to them and when/how that line can be crossed by anyone.

• An educated school system has to be the place where society begins to liberate itself from the shackles of abuse and violence. India is in dire need of a country-wide curriculum (adapted to the diversity of the land) that teaches and requires children, teachers and parents to meet together and discuss this issue of existing and potential violence. This is not an issue that can any longer be swept under the carpet. It must be looked at full in the face.

• Awareness-raising, sensitization campaigns, supportive NGOs, pro-active government bodies together should be able to create a net that keeps scores of women and girls from falling through the cracks. Together, these measures should be able to create an atmosphere of fearlessness around this issue: victims should feel free/supported to speak up; on-lookers/bystanders (of which there are always so many) should feel that they can and should help if they see injustice being carried out in front of their eyes. There needs to be a greater sense of both involvement with and compassion for our fellow beings. Each small act of kindness adds up to create a movement that seeks a more just, equitable society.

• The Indian patriarchy must be questioned by individuals and by groups. India is already striving to be a place where genders seek equality but in order to do so we must agree that violence inflicted on others because of their gender, their age or any other cause that is deemed sufficient is actually just an act of suppression and must not be tolerated. Boys and girls in school as well as men and women beyond school-going age must begin to see and question their cultural values in the light of humanistic principles of equality, compassion, truth and justice. Within the Indian cultural context, there is enough space to move the current narrative towards a more equal, less hierarchical society.

India and Indians must develop zero tolerance for violence against girls and women. These acts of violence are not always carried out behind closed doors. They happen in the open, in densely populated neighborhoods, on the street, in public spaces and vehicles, in educational and religious and medical institutions - in other words, this is happening everywhere, all around us.

India is not a static entity. It holds great potential for change. The challenge is to take steps that move away from violence back to the days when non-violence was considered an ideal.

Prevention of violence against children: A pressing concern, an absolute necessity

Little had I expected this trip to India to be as harrowing as it turned out to be. Perhaps, the hardest thing for me to comprehend is the scale of violence inflicted on children. In legal terms children are defined as persons under the age of 18 years in India. And indeed, violence appears to have no barriers - children as young as a few months old to teenaged girls and everyone in between is subject to being victimised.

The Ahimsa Pilot Initiative was started in order to work with organizations that will prevent violence against women and children. In most cases, in emotional terms, violence on a child is tantamount to violence against the mother and visa-versa.

I visited SNEHA Mumbai’s three-year project on Prevention of Violence against Children. The program is being carried out in the slums where SNEHA has been operational for decades. It examines both the corporal disciplining practices currently being followed by parents as well as cases of sexual absue that occur. Furthermore, it cousels parents and children (through age-appropriate learning modules and strategies) on youth violence, substance abuse, sexual and physical abuse. 400 children and 400 parents (primarily mothers) are enrolled as participants in this research and action-based pilot study.

Prevention of violence against children: SNEHA Mumbai staff hold a meeting with parents to inform them about the signs for recognizing sexual abuse in children.

Photo credit: SNEHA Mumbai

On the day I visited, a cluster of mothers - some of who brought their younger children - got together in a small open area in the middle of the slum to learn about the signs for recognizing sexual abuse in children. The trainer from SNEHA showed them a video and then had an open discussion allowing for plenty of back and forth. The women were able to discuss these matters openly among themselves, and in the presence of SNEHA’s staff who could answer questions, guide the disucssion. They learnt how to pay close attention if they see sudden changes in their child’s behaviour. For example, a normally boisterous child turning quiet; a normally well behaved one becoming particulary aggressive etc.

Just at that time I did not realize how important life-saving trainings like these can be. However, when I visited the NGO Guria India in Benaras I met with a few girls who were survivors of violence. Of these, one was Sonali, a 19 year old girl, who lived in a small village community on the outskirts of Benaras. Her mother works as a maid, her father is handicapped by illness and no longer works. When Sonali was 10 years old, her cousin brother, who was 28 years old at the time and lived in practically the same compound as Sonali, began to molest her. He would call her over and for three years he raped the child while the parents were away. After about three years, he called his friends over to join - so that there were multiple boys utterly victimizing this young child.

Sonali’s mother cried when she told me, “It was my fault. I did not understand what was going on. She (Sonali) would refuse to take the food to her cousin when I asked her to. She would say: ‘I won’t go.’ But I did not understand. I did not understand what my child was trying to say. I thought she is just being stubborn.” She also remembered, “She (Sonali) changed. She became very quiet and would not speak up. She looked sad.”

Urban slums, like Dharavi, are congested, lack basic facilities, and they are also home to many thousands of children.

Photo credit: SNEHA Mumbai

Had Sonali’s mother been aware of what signs to look for in her daughter, what to watch out for, perhaps she would have been able to prevent the violence from continuing over years - heartbreakingly unchecked! At 13, Sonali’s periods started, and soon after they stopped, i.e., she fell pregnant. Her cousin who had been raping her for years abducted her and took her away to dispose of the unborn child. They planned to abort the child and sell the girl. However, Sonali’s mother hunted and cried and begged the police for days before they got on the case. They quickly traced the boy and his associate through eye-witnesses who had last seen Sonali with them.

Sonali was brought back to Benaras and put into a Shelter Home where the Warden of the Home did her best to destroy all medical evidence as well as brainwash the girl so she would not testify against her cousin. By that time both the police and the Warden had been paid by the parents’ of the rapists. They were determined that Sonali would not speak up. At this point, Guria was brought into the picture. They filed a court case against two boys, one of who was Sonali’s cousin, the other being one of his friends. Sonali spoke the truth in the presence of the magistrate. The case was registered. One boy was a juvenile and released with a light sentence (as is the case for juveniles in India). The other boy, Sonali’s cousin, was also released on bail. He is currently free while the case grinds through the halls of justice at its own excruciating pace.

In the meantime, Sonali’s cousin and his parents started to pressure her mother to marry Sonali off to her own cousin who had raped her, abducted her, had her child aborted, and had planned to sell her off for a few hundred thousand rupees. If not for Guria’s presence, Sonali’s mother would have definitely married her daughter off to her rapist. This is often the resolution to the dilemma of rape/incest in India: marriage to the rapist. This will save face for the family. The daughter’s honor will be restored. She will become a married woman, ‘taken care’ of by her husband, associated with his name.

Today Sonali stays at home, hardly steps out - for she is subject to much ridicule and jokes by the villagers. She is doing some work, including taking orders for sewing, within the four walls of her house. She is often depressed and had talked of killing herself. Her older brother, also the victim of ridicule, almost succeeded in committing suicide out of guilt and misery when he found out what had happened with his sister. Their family is suffering for speaking out, for not marrying their daughter to her rapist, for fighting (against all odds) for justice.

This then is just one story of many that is repeated over and over again in households. In slums where the density of population is intense and space is practically non-existent, it is so much harder for parents to watch their children. In homes where parents have to leave their children unattended for hours on end daily, it is so much easier that something like this should happen. And yet, this kind of abuse is perpetrated across all manner of households - from the rich to the middle-class to the poor.

Every child deserves a safe childhood that they may grow up to be healthy and happy individuals. Photo taken at Guria’s non-formal education center in Benaras.

Photo credit: Guria India

Awareness is one of the key factors to ensure prevention. This is where SNEHA’s trainings directed towards both parents and children become crucial.

SNEHA was started by Dr. Fernandez who began the organization for the purposes of improving maternal and child health and survival. There were however, two particular cases, that prompted Dr. Fernandez to add the component of ‘prevention of violence against women and children (PVWC)’ to the agenda of the organization. Dr. Fernandez came across a case of a 6 month old girl who was brought to the hospital, bleeding, because she had been raped. Another time, when there was a worker’s strike in the hospital, she noticed a mother, who had a fractured hand, squatting overnight within the hospital premises, with her two small children close to her. This woman had been beaten and thrown out of her house. After these two incidents, in the year 2000, the component of PVWC was added on to SNEHA’s work.

Horrific as these stories are, I heard them time and again, in the government hospital that I visited with SNEHA, and again in Benaras, where I was told that the number of cases being brought to court under The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO), 2012, are so great that 4 separate courts have had to be set up to meet the huge numbers being filed.

I learnt of cases so horrific that to put them up here (even without any visuals) would require a warning: Distressing content.

What does it say about our society? What indeed does it say about Indian culture? These are not isolated cases of deviants. These cases are wide-spread. They are shockingly common. Not enough is being done to stem this tide of violence. If we have knowledge, we must follow through with action. Childen do not have a #metoo movement. We must be their voice.

Ending child prostitution in Benaras, including second generation servitude in the sex trade

How do you keep a prostitute’s child out of the business? The brothel owner, the Madam, accomodates the entire pregnancy of her earning asset, the prostitute. She is the one who will hold the baby in her lap while the prostitute is servicing the clients inside. The child grows up considering the Madam of the house like his mother. The prostitute sees this and her ties to the brothel, her sense of debt to the Madam of the house are further strengthened. She will not try to run away, leave the place where she is working.

Towards the end of the day, before food is served, children finally sit down in rows to meditate - they go from clapping, singing, laughing to restul meditation.

Photo credit: Guria India

How then is one to keep her child from entering into the same profession: a prostitute if the child is a girl and a pimp if he is a boy. This is a conundrum because pressure is brought upon the mother to facilitate this transition for her children. Though she may be resistant to the idea left to herself, she may be forced to give in because she does not see a way out. Isolated and surrounded on all sides by ‘well-wishers’ like the Madam, the traffickers, the pimps, a woman may very well allow her children to follow in her foot-steps.

Once a girl is a teenager, she is a potential earning asset for the brothel and can be recruited. In the process, she may well be moved/sold to another place, distant from her mother’s place of work. Isolation is always an effective strategy to gain compliance. Being by yourself is equivalent to being helpless in most cases. This is where NGOs like Guria step in by being present on the spot, on location, in the red light area where it is possible to disrupt this cyle of exploitation.

Beauticians doing hair and others making mehndi (henna) designs on paper and on willing hands at the non-formal education center. All the children have lockers where they keep their own precious things.

Photo credit: Guria India

Guria works in two ways: by prosecuting brothel owners who are currently employing child prostitutes & by ensuring that the children of the prostitutes get an opportunity to study and have some healing from the trauma of witnessing their mothers who are employed in the trade. Both aspects of this job are very difficult to ensure.

Closing brothels where children are employed can only be done by going about it systematically: first gathering evidence (which is done at great risk to one’s own life and well being), then involving the police to conduct a raid which would take the girls out. These girls are then re-habilitated back to their families preferably (because the Shelter Homes are notorious) where they are set up with a means of livelihood so that the family is not again in great need. Girls receive counseling as well as their family members.

This beautiful stage was constructed by the children to represent a city.

Photo credit: Guria India

Since brothel owners are part of a criminal nexus, the people who are responsible for closing their brothels receive threats and may be killed. This is a risk that has to be carried by the people who take up the onus of closing brothels which employ children. However, this has been Guria’s work from the very start and continues till today, at (literally) risk of life and limb.

The second part of the job involves rehabilitating the children born to prostitutes in the red light district. Sivdaspur is the red light area in Benaras. Currently, it is 100% child prostitution free - the only red light district in all of India which can claim this distinction. This has been achieved thanks to Guria’s efforts. The intention is definitely to keep it this way. However, prostitutes in Sivdaspur may choose to have children, either one or two. This desire for children is a normal, human desire.

The shuttered door of a brothel that was running child prostitutes in Sivdaspur, Varanasi. It was finally closed after ardous efforts by Guria.

Photo credit: Guria India

The Madam of the brothel will allow the woman to have children. Thereafter, the mother will send her children to school and just like any mother, she does not want her children to follow in her foot-steps. With the assistance of Guria, she knows that she will be helped in sending her children to school.

351 children were admitted to schools whose education was sponsored by Guria. Apart from these 351 children, there are also many self-sponsored children whose parents agreed to pay for their education after being motivated by Guria. Most children of school-going age, in Benaras’ red light area, now go to schools, either government run or private.

By the end of the mediation class, some of the children - especially the little ones - fall fast asleep, after a whole day of studying and playing.

Photo credit: Guria India

Perhaps, just as important as formal schooling, is the non-formal education center being run by Guria within Sivdaspur since 1994. Scattered throughout this article are pictures of the center. It is a place that is largely a refuge for children who are otherwise exposed to so much in their homes and their neighborhoods. They know and understand their mother’s source of income that they too are dependent on; they know how society at large will look upon them. These are not easy things for children to process.

At Guria’s non-formal education center, a range of activities from dance, singing, playing, art therapy (clay work, bead-making, painting, handicrafts, hand-made cards, etc.), computer classes, theatre, photography, videography, sports, gardening, feeding birds, meditation, exposure visits, picnics, beautician training, sewing, meditation, laughing/shouting clubs - all these are part of providing a release to the children . It is a place where children are able to get together. They come after school and stay for hours on end, taking charge of their own routines and activities. The long summer holidays are also spent here and always, but always there is a great deal of reluctance to go home on the part of the children.

Drawing class in progress. Each child made their own individual unique creation - not just in drawing class but in all the handicrafts that I saw.

Photo credit: Guria India

This then is how child prostitution was brought to an end in Benaras by Guria’s efforts. This, however, is not a situation that can be left alone. It needs to be monitored and maintained over time. Otherwise, it would be all too easy for child prostitution to creep back in. This is also where an effective government would step in to maintain law and order. But as we have seen, the police and the judiciary are part of the criminal nexus; government bodies disinclined to enforce law and order. NGOs like Guria are necessary to maintain the humanity that should define our society, but is often - too often - lacking.

The joy and the challenge of working with women and girls in India

There is a certain dichotomy between the existing culture in India and the rhetoric around it. There is always a great deal of talk about our Indian values and ancient culture. To some extent, every political party will bring things around to praising these Indian values where women know their place and therefore, are respected for their position in society. Similarly, men know how to reciprocate with respect and a sense of honor. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Deviant behavior of all sorts is common among individuals, families, communities and society at large. India is an established patriarchy, and men (on the street/in the workplace/at home) will push their advantage (either alone or with the collusion of their friends and family) to the max. In the best case scenario, they will remain quiet, witness what is happening and advocate for the status quo. And like all popular movements, the other side is often co-opted, either willingly or unwillingly. Some women will also work to re-enforce the patriarchy and become an active component for propogation of the same.

At the children’s Non Formal Education Center in Benaras’ red light district of Sivdaspur. The girls in this picture are working on henna and hair styling.

Photo credit: Guria

What is interesting though, and surprising, is that large numbers of women, while acutely aware of this phenomenon of male domination, are not willing to just stay quietly behind the scenes or in their place. Women in India, even in places where the odds are stacked against them, appear to know what they ‘want’ for themselves, how they ‘want’ to move forward. There is a push from their side which demands greater freedom, greater voice - just like a rushing waterfall that cannot be held back. There are too many droplets of water to be pushed back into place. And just like water they surge forward.

This is what I appreciate about working in India. Women will talk, they will fight, they will have opinions and they will try their hardest to get their children ahead, if they haven’t been able to do so themselves. This is the real joy of working here - not that the problems are managable; not that it is easy to unravel the threads of individual lives out of the morass of a malfunctioning system; not that the current power structures make it possible to get a lot done quickly. Not for any of these reasons, but because the women have spirit, they see what is going on and they have the capacity to speak up and work both within the existing systems and outside of them, if pushed. This is the real joy of working with women in India.

Whether they are the working professionals in NGOs, the volunteer sanginis in Mumbai, the girls and their mothers who are survivors of rape and abuse, the nurses, doctors, lawyers and clinical psychologists who are working with other women - they are inspiring in their determination to push through the barriers as best as they can. The circumstances are tough but the women will persevere.

With the nurses at Mumbai’s Nair Hospital. they are all part of the Core Committee that works with SNEHA to identify and report cases of violence against patients who come in to the hospital.

Photo Credit: SNEHA Mumbai

Benaras: The Holy City where Cows are Safer than Women and Children

It was in Benaras that I was introduced to four young girls who are all being helped by Guria (http://guriaindia.org/), an organization that is fighting sex trafficking, child prosititution and second generation prostitution. (Children are defined as individuals below the age of 18 years.) A child who is trafficked can be sold into prostitution and when this girl has a child, s/he can be easily assimilated into the trade. All three aspects of this work are linked because one leads to another. Therefore, Guria works on these three inter-connected issues:

• First, by preventing the source from supplying the prostitutes. This is done by raising awareness at the village level because most young girls are fooled or lured away from their homes. Their innocence of matters outside their own village is used to get them away, and then shattered very soon after they are brought outside of the safety of their own network of people.

• Secondly, by organizing rescues - some of which are in response to a particular situation they have been informed of; and some of which are the result of months of risky reconnaissance of a location which is known to run child prostitutes.

• Thirdly, by rehabilitating rescued prostitutes which is done by giving them monies and help for appropriate livelihood generation; by giving them monthly compensation while their case is in progress at the Court (though cases go on much longer than the compensation); helping them with educational needs, as required; by locating them with either their parents (because Shelter Homes are notoriously corrupt) or in witness protection (which is not provided by the government).

• Lastly, by giving them legal help. This is an excruciatingly long process which can go on for decades. While I was visiting, Ajeet Singh (the founder of Guria), received legal notice to appear as witness in a case that had been filed in 2005! We are now talking 18 years down the line. The case had not been addressed! There are multiple challenges in this part of the process because the entire system is malfunctioning - but systematically - so that outwardly, it gives an appearance of following well-laid out channels of proof and documentation etc. Actually, the innards of the process have been taken out of the body of justice.

At Guria’s office, I was met with 4 of the many girls who have been helped by them. These were all girls whose court cases are on-going; i.e., justice has not been given to them, but it has not been denied as yet either, nor have they succumbed to pressure (bribe or threats of violence against them and/or their family) to withdraw their cases.

Hard at work at the non-formal education center in Sivdaspur, Benaras’ red-light area, where these children of the local prostitutes come in to play, laugh, meditate and hang out after school. Part of the work of prevention of second generation prostitution involves healing present trauma as well.

Photo credit: Guria India

I met with Smita (all names are changed), a young girl of 18 years who had just given her 12th grade Board Exams (crucial all-India exams at the end of your last year of schooling). She was an outwardly healthy looking girl, dressed simply and conservatively in a salwar-kameez. She came with her mother who was wearing a sari and gold jewellery, with sindoor (vermilion, marking a married Hindu woman) in her hair parting. In 2014, when Smita was 14 years old, she was on her way back from after-school academic enrichment ‘coaching’ class. She was not alone, but with her younger brother who was 7 years old at the time.

They were stopped by their next door neighbor who beat up her younger brother and forcibly carried away Smita - from a quiet road, but one that was nevertheless, in the middle of the city. This is easily done with some chloroform and a waiting car with a chauffer ready to go. Smita was carried as far as Delhi and placed in a house. She was raped repeatedly over 8 days by multiple men and boys (called ‘juveniles’ under the law). She was kept in a locked room. Horrifying as this was, she overheard the main kidnapper planning to sell her for a few lakhs into the sex trade. Keeping her head about her, she managed to escape and made it by train as far as Allahabad. From there, she begged the phone of someone and called her parents.

In the meantime, her parents who knew exactly who the kidnapper was (thanks to the first-hand testimony of their own son who had been present) went to the police. The police refused - outright refused - to file a FIR (first information report). So, the case is not even noted down. It does not exist. This is normal procedure in Benaras. The first response - if you can call it ‘first response’ - from the police is refusal to file the case. In rural areas, they will kick the victim out of the police station and just tell them to shut up. In semi-urban areas, they will just dismiss them casually or put them off day after day after painful day.

The police know who the kidnapper is and they know his family. They know he has done it before and will do it again. So, why keep quiet about it? For the logical reason that they are in on the cut. They are part of the criminal nexus. When someone approaches them to file a report, they put off the victim and call the aggressor to ask for their share of the loot. This is standard operating procedure. Period.

The parents then approached the kidnapper’s mother and begged her for their daughter’s return - not ‘safe’ return because everyone knows that it is too late for that. They just wanted their daughter returned. They promised not to file a court case against the kidnapper. Again, they were summarily dismissed by the parents of the kidnapper who know that their son is part of the racket for selling girls and makes money off this business.

Finally, the parents approached Guria and accompanied by their staff, the police took down a FIR, i.e., it was officially acknowledged 4 days after the girl had been carried away that she was indeed missing. Having received a phone call from the girl, a rescue was carried out quickly. The girl had been advised to sit quietly and inconscpicously at the railway station, because the trafficking nexus has a wide and thorough reach. If the traffickers discovered her at Allahabad, she would be spirited away from there before she could be rescued. Fortunately, she was found and brought home.

Guria filed a case along with the girl and her family. The case is on-going. For once, the kidnapper was placed behind bars and denied bail so that he is still in prison while the case moves slowly through the halls of justice. A lot of pressure was brought to bear on the police to deny the kidnapper’s bail. Even with him in jail, Smita and her family are still stressed - threats, pleadings (by the kidnapper’s mother who refused all help to them previously) and of course, bribes are all offered.

None of the victims are brought back to the same environment they left from immediately. They go to a relative’s house or the family moves house (if they can) so that the girl is not brought back to the same place to relive her nightmare. Smita stayed ill for days and stopped eating after she came home. She talked of killing herself. After 4 years, she is still often quiet and depressed, though she is doing all that is expected of her by her family. She has received counseling from Guria’s staff though the trauma, undoubtedly, runs deep.

Meeting with the Woman’s Vigilance Group in a village, close to Benaras. Women in villages are outspoken and feel free to both answer questions and ask you questions, without hesitation.

Photo Credit: Guria India

So…in Benaras, it is easy to lay hands on a girl or a woman. Immunity from a non-existent, completely, utterly compromised system of (lack of) law and order is well known to the locals. They exploit it. But the government of Uttar Pradesh has very strict laws on the books for the protection of cows - the holy animal of the Hindus. And those laws are stringently implemented. Cows have protected status. Even the women in Guria’s Women’s Vigilance Group in the village, complained bitterly to me: “If a (male) calf used to be born, we would sell it away for money. Now, we cannot. We do not need it in the field. We have no where to keep it. If we leave it in the field, it will eat up the crops we planted. We do not know what to do. The government won’t allow us to touch it.”

This is just one example of the absurdity of the laws and their implementation in Uttar Pradesh. Girls and women live with less freedom and less protection than the cows of this state. You will be socially shamed, ostracized and possibly lynched for touching a cow; but a woman, a girl … she is fair game for all to do with as they please.

The Sanginis of SNEHA

A ‘sangini’ is ‘one who stands by you,’ who is your ‘companion.’ This is the title given to the female volunteers who are the task force of SNEHA’s operations in the field, in the slums of Dharavi and Govandi, 400 sanginis are currently being trained and re-enforced as part of SNEHA’s project: Teaching Communities Zero Tolerance for Gender Based Violence. They, in turn, have been active with SNEHA for anywhere from more than 10 years to the last 3 years prior to earning the title of ‘sangini.’

So, what exactly does a sangini do in the community? And who are these women who have come forward to do this work - not because they are paid, but because they care to take it on.

Let us consider the story of Hamida (names changed to maintain anonymity). She had been abused as a child, married off as a teenager, and thereafter abused again - beaten, driven out of the house periodically, and subject to all manner of physical and mental torture. The entire time, they were living in a makeshift shelter. Over time, her husband’s condition was identified as schizophrenia. Living in this chaotic way, Hamida had 3 daughters. To leave her husband and go back to her own family was not an option: it is seldom an option. Irrespective of the much-heralded idea of how your mother’s home is your home, the reality is often that married women who want to return are not welcomed back. It is too shameful for the parent’s family and by and large, most Indian families lack the clarity, courage and conviction to stand by their daughters when they are in trouble.

Legal Awareness Training for the sanginis organized by the National Commission for Women and the National Legal Services Authority, both government bodies that are collaborating with SNEHA.

Photo credit: SNEHA Mumbai

Hamida fought her own battles. A part of the slum at Govandi was slowly filling up with migrants. She staked out a piece of land as her own and set up a tarpaulin sheet shelter there. In the morning, she would go back to her rented one-room dwelling and stay there with her children. Every night, she would return to defend her small piece of land in the developing slum area. With her, she would take one of her little children who was disabled (and has since passed) and sleep there. Goons would come with machettes at night to scare her away from that spot but she told them, “I am here. If the worst you can do is kill me, then kill me. But I am not moving.” Over time, the slum grew and little by little, she was able to put together a 100 foot square dwelling for herself and her growing family. That house is today a pucca (solid - not made of tarp and tin) dwelling in the slum of Govandi. It is still tiny but she has some nominal papers certifying her right to that dwelling as her own. Her husband is still there and the slum area that came up around that house since 2005 is really dangerous.

Addiction to drugs among children (as young as 7 years), teenagers and adults is rampant. Your life is not worth a moment’s protest in this environment. Murder is easily done and entirely unpunished. Police are scared to visit and patrol at night, (rightly) suspecting that they would be knifed and thrown away in the gutter. Sexual and physical abuse is rampant. Stealing and selling of ordinary household items (like barrels that hold water which is rationed for 2 hours daily) is carried out all the time in order to pay for drugs.

In this viciously tough enviroment, Hamida met with SNEHA’s staff and became acquainted with them and their work. She learnt how to stand up for herself and fend off her husband’s threat of violence. “The way it is here,” she said, “ten of us (sanginis) would have to die in order to bring down ten of them (the druggies/abusers). We are not scared for ourselves, but if we say too much, they will harrass our children.” With such tiny dwellings shared among so many people, children grow up in the narrow galis of the slums. They have no place to play, no where to run around except these highly constricted spaces within the slums. Once they are out, they are exposed and open to anyone who decides to lay hands on them.

Despite these circumstances, Hamida is still a leader among her neighborhood group of almost 12-15 other sanginis. When there are problems in the neighborhood - whether it is a case of wife-beating or child harrassment or getting a water connection for the house - they come to Hamida. Being illiterate has not kept her from getting her own house a water connection and helping others do the same around her. She has the conviction of her own strength and is recognized as a leader.

Not helpless women at all, but rather running their own shop selling special cutlets and snacks which are very popular in the neighborhood. Some sanginis are more financially successful and have easier circumstances at home than others. What they have in common is their willingness to look out for others in their community, and knowing that in this they have the support of SNEHA.

Photo credit: SNEHA Mumbai

When the need for collective action arises, sanginis band together in a group and go visit the house of the affected party and cajole, explain, threaten and demand that things change. And often they do. Another sangini, a leader in her own right, noticed that a woman was drunk and surrounded by men at 1.00am in the night in the street in front of her house. She called her friend from close-by, who woke up at that time of night, and came over to stand by the drunk woman, waiting till help arrived, and the gang of men who had surrounded her were effectively dispersed. That day, they prevented what would almost certainly have become a full blown gang rape, by actively intervening. Their presence and their stature in the community acts as a deterrent. They have had men serve prison time and allowed women and children to feel protected in their community.

They are taught how to do this by SNEHA’s staff who provide the sanginis regular training in how to identify cases; how to manage them on their own; or refer them to SNEHA when the case requires special attention; how to accompany the abused to the police station in order to get a report filed; how to intervene by convening collective meetings with all members in the victim’s family; how to recognize when a woman needs extra counseling and legal help, and send them correctly on to SNEHA for these specialized services. And above all, how to stick by the abused, follow up with them and check-in on them as they begin the process of recovering themselves anew.

Sanginis prefer not to act alone. In one case, in Dharavi, a young woman was assaulted by the tailor who was renting the upstairs part of their slum dwelling. She cried out and was heard by women nearby. The sanginis came running. In the meantime, the tailor picked up his scissors and rammed them into the girl’s head. She started bleeding profusely. As soon as the sanginis arrived, one took the girl to the hospital, a few stayed with the tailor till the police arrived, and one went and called the girl’s father.

A house for 4 children and 2 adults. What you see is 50% of the house. The remaining 50% is the kitchen. Everything that the family owns is here. The sum total of their possessions. There is solidarity among the sanginis who live in similar circumstances and understand each other’s situation well. They will stand together.

Photo credit: SNEHA Mumbai

Acting together and effectively has made them conscious of their strength. When asked, how it made them feel to be a sangini, to help others, I heard various replies:

“We feel proud that we are somebody who can help. We also have some power.”

“We have learnt to believe in our selves.”

“Until now all we did was manage the house and take care of the kids. Now we are also worth something.”

This is an effective model for empowering women to act under the most difficult of circumstances. It is a model that has truly been a means of change. The longer a community has had a sangini base, the less violence there is in that area. But it takes time to build that kind of presence and each community in the vast slums of Mumbai has its own set of unique problems and assets. SNEHA is working under excruciating circumstances, navigating this complex architecture of the Mumbai slums with the sanginis who live there to increase the safety and well being of the community.

Domestic violence & the all-important question: ‘What will people say?’

Being subject to domestic violence is a matter of great shame for the victim. It’s an internal matter. It’s a family affair. You really don’t want the neighbors to know about it. But how can you keep your neighbors from knowing every intimate detail of your life when you live in a hovel 80-100 square feet, when the walls are paper thin and even the sound of your heavy breathing carries over next door, forget about any screaming/shouting/crying you may do when you are being beaten or if voices are raised. You know they know … not just them, everyone knows, up and down the narrow gali. Whether or not, you show any visible signs of abuse on your face, whether or not you choose to smile and act normal – they know. So among the poor who are living in slum dwellings, privacy is not possible. Shame still is. But women sympathize with women. They understand how it can be that your husband is taking it out on you, and they don’t blame you.

As Nayreen Daruwalla, the Director of the Prevention of Violence Against Women and Children Program at SNEHA told me, “They have already fallen so low. They have nothing to lose when they come to us. So…they are not scared about trying to keep things quiet.”

Once victims of extreme violence, today volunteer community organizers for SNEHA, as ‘sanginis’ meaning ‘someone who will stand by your side.’ The women in this picture are very brave for standing up for their own rights and fighting for those of others around them. They are uneducated, poor women but not unempowered. They have learnt how to fight for their rights. They have no fear for themselves, but as mothers they fear for their children.

Photo credit: SNEHA Mumbai

However, we discussed a different scenario as well: A woman from a well to-do household, with money, position, a large house with many rooms, many walls, strong walls that hold sound in. She cares, she cares a lot more. “She has a lot more at stake,” Nayreen said. She has a certain reputation as being the wife of an important person in the neighborhood and the community. She is a lot more concerned that no one should find out.

Abuse need not always be physical, it can be emotional, mental and insidious, so that the woman no longer knows if she’s coming or going, if she is capable of doing anything on her own or not. Abuse comes in many forms.

Her position may well be the same or worse than the position of the woman in the slum. She is similarly abused and controlled, but she cares a lot more about: ‘What will the neighbors say?’ And not just the neighbors, but what will her own extended family say if they find out. NO ONE must find out.

What will be her position in society if she is not the wife of so-and-so? How will she be identified? What is her status? Perhaps the only thing worse than being single, is being divorced. Holding up a brave face to the world. Being known as a ‘divorced woman.’ Yes, people will sympathize with her, to some extent, but, at the end of the day, she will be known as a ‘divorcee.’ Does she really want someone’s pity that is, after all, mixed with their judgement – at some level. If they don’t judge her, personally, as being at fault; they will judge her fate as being cursed that she should have landed in this situation.

How different is this reaction of two women who are otherwise in a similar position of being abused! Privacy fears are of such paramount importance to women in middle-class/wealthy households that they may never come out and seek help, afraid of being ‘found out.’ For slum dwellers, there is no privacy – you live, you die with the eyes of the world upon you.  

Each of the stone steps on either side of this narrow gali/lane is an entire house for anywhere from 6 to 10 people. It will include a tiny kitchen but the bathrooms are often shared community resources, placed at distance from the dwelling itself. They also often become places where children are preyed upon. This, however, is one of the best areas among the slums that I visited.

Photo credit: SNEHA Mumbai

The helplessness is perhaps the same … who do I turn to? How will I manage alone? How will I handle the financial impact of separating if that happens? How will I be safe(r) alone, without a man’s name attached to me in public? After all these years together, what does it mean for me to be on my own? Was I just wasting myself and my time all these years? It is so hard to grapple with all the issues involved. If there are children, as they often are, they are usually a reason for just sticking it out. However, abuse of the mother is abuse of the child. The reverberations of abuse are felt throughout the household. Children are seldom spared.

Domestic abuse is not limited by barriers of class, wealth, status. It is widespread. However, a woman’s response is conditioned by her position in society. Why then should there be a society where the victim can also become the accused? Why should there be a society, a family structure where compassion is so lacking; where strength in numbers is the strength of oppression, not solidarity?

Why should society be organized on the principle of: ‘What will people say?’ And who are these people who have absolutely nothing helpful to say/to offer? What cost do we pay when we buy into the patriarchal set up? And frankly, it is nothing but a ‘set up’ for women who didn’t set it up this way, but are thoroughly conditioned to be a part of it. Why be party to such a hidebound, heavily one-sided system of organizing society?  Yet, you are just a part of it by living in society. You just learn not to talk about these kinds of issues and learn to internalize shame. Your husband’s problem becomes your shame.

Why shouldn’t a woman who is being abused not feel like it is her right to seek help – from family, from a counselor, from friends? And why shouldn’t family and friends feel like they are ready to help in any way they can, without judgement?

Listening to a group of sanginis. The two on the left-hand side are powerful, established figures in the community, the peace-makers, the activists, the ones who demand justice and the ones who women turn to when they are in trouble. They are recognized and respected in their role as spokeswomen who will fight for the rights of others. They have been trained by SNEHA in this capacity.

Photo credit: SNEHA Mumbai

Why should patriarchy dominate our thinking, our way of life at every step in India? Why are current norms set up to favor men? Why should we not strive for equality in our relationships between men and women? And why should we not actively practice compassion? Why is face-saving the dominant value in Indian society? Is one’s worth only measured by the approval in the ‘neighbor’s eyes?’

This fear of revelation goes hand-in-hand with the nature of our existing societal setup. Victims of domestic violence may be better served by a society where their abuse is looked at as unacceptable, where they are not judged, where they feel free to speak up knowing they will receive support, not just a critical appraisal.

We have a long way to go still in India. So-called ‘Indian values’ are in dire need to being reappraised and restructured.

Life is lived on these narrow streets in the slums of Mumbai. Space and privacy are alien terms.

Photo credit: SNEHA Mumbai

Finding a voice, finding courage

There are many things about SNEHA Mumbai that I appreciated:

• the long-term (in some cases decades long) committment of the staff to the cause and the organization;

• the decency and care they displayed towards the women who came to cry on their shoulders (literally);

• the depth and extent of their trainings and subsequent knowledge about the laws on the books which could then be implemented/demanded in favor of the abused;

• the real energy and enthusiasm of their volunteer task force in the slums of Mumbai;

• the kind of professionalism that comes from a deep understanding of the many moving parts of their organization’s multi-pronged programs;

• their willingness to address the question “How do you know your programs are working?” through years of systematic research with outside agencies as partners

• their willingness and real effort to coordinate with different government bodies and take them along, educating them as they see necessary; and,

• their thoughtful realization that such serious issues can only be dealt with, over a long period of time, if staff and volunteers are kept involved through periodic celebrations which involve games, competitions and activities that require a great deal of whole-hearted participation and team building.

With Dr. Nayreen Daruwalla, Director of Prevention of Violence against Women and Children Program & Vandana Singh, Program Coordinator at SNEHA’s oldest office located within a branch hospital in Dharavi, Mumbai

Photo credit: SNEHA Mumbai

But perhaps, the one thing I appreciated most, about SNEHA Mumbai’s staff is their attitude - they will not give up on a woman, they will stick with her, and they will help her fight for her rights. This is important.

Sometimes it is very difficult not to give up for a woman who has no support from family or friends, nowhere to go AND she is under fire from someone significantly important to her like her spouse or members of his family. It is at this breaking point that women often become suicidal, or are perhaps beaten/raped/poisoned/burned to the point that they end up in hospital. It is also at this point that SNEHA’s staff, located strategically, in government hospitals, armed with their own ‘Woman and Child OPD (Out Patient Department)’ intervene. (Their primary intervention initiatives focus on prevention and I will talk about it separately.) Their trained counselors and case workers who work in the hospital are responsible for identifying victims and following up with them even after they have been discharged.

It may come as a surprise to some (though not so much when you think about it) that often victims of domestic abuse will not open their mouths to speak up against the perpetrator or for themselves. They need help to begin to gather the courage to speak out. This is not the case for the victims who are under 18, who are often referred to the hospital by the police under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO), and there are too many of those here. Then there are the unmarried girls who come in to the hospital pregnant and unaware of where to go, who to turn to. There are the rape victims and the ones who are taken innocently or fooled into believing marriage is imminent.

With nurses, doctors, other staff members and SNEHA personnel who together form the Core Commitee and Rapid Response Group at Mumbai’s Nair Hospital. The purpose of this joint endeavor is to identify and follow up, providing care, services and support to the victims of violence, be it domestic or child abuse. We are seated in SNEHA’s Child and Women OPD (out patient department) located within the hospital where one-on-one or whole family counseling sessions are held, as required.

Photo Credit: SNEHA Mumbai

Marriage, that ultimate bastion of respectability in Indian society, is often not so very respectable at all. Not when a woman is abused and subject to marital rape within the confines of that respectable institution. Domestic violence is the number one cause of crime against women, as recorded by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). It makes up 32% of the total crimes officially reported. In 2021, there was a 15% increase in this one sphere of reporting, with 136,234 cases recorded across the country. Of course, during the pandemic this particular problem was exacerbated, and it began to be referred to as ‘the shadow pandemic.’

The way SNEHA’s outreach is currently structured it is both far-reaching and flexible. Their staff is present in the major government hospitals in Mumbai, which also serve as teaching hospitals for doctors and nurses in training. They run their own counseling-based OPDs within these hospitals. 80% of the total number of cases cases of domestic abuse dealt by SNEHA are referred to them by hospital providers. When I enquired of the nurses if SNEHA’s presence was a help to them and how they were managing before, they responded by telling me they were very grateful when SNEHA entered the scence, ““Dealing with the patients when they tell us their problems. What can we do? Even if we can do something, who will follow up? If we have to get involved and go to police station; still we need backup from a proper organization. Who can lead us in the right direction. With SNEHA, we could coordinate for the patient properly.”

Another remarkable poster made by a nursing student at Nair Hospital to participate in a poster making competition on the occasion of International Woman’s Day.

Photo credit: SNEHA Mumbai

A doctor who was present said, “We are here 9 to 4” indicating that SNEHA’s staff would provide counseling, legal advice, practical help with issues of shelter and food, make visits to the police station with the victim, if required, to file complaints, and diligently follow up with them after they are discharged, both within and beyond their offical working hours. They will go into the community where SNEHA’s counseling centers are located, their trained volunteers are based.

In other words, they cast a comprehensive net to save the woman and children who are trapped in a cycle of abuse. Another hospital staff told me, “They (SNEHA staff) reach where we cannot reach and they have very good coordination with the police.” Again, part of SNEHA’s mission is to strenghten existing systems in the government sphere, to sensitize and train government personnel be they in healthcare or police so that they in turn are better able to handle their responsibilities.

An NGO need not perpetuate it’s existence forever; rather, in an ideal case, an NGO exists only to bring itself to an end by solving the problem for good. This then is SNEHA’s long-term approach as it considers how to hand over programs to government bodies and to the trained volunteers themselves in the areas where they are currently operational.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

The title, perhaps, is an accurate summation of my impressions of Mumbai. Consider this blog a small digression from the content of the work to the context of the place that I find myself working in. It is also the context within which the work of Gender Based Violence Prevention is happening, and believe me, the place itself has it’s own set of challenges which are unique to the culture and society that grows around such a severely packed population center as Mumbai.

Of course, having grown up in India, my country comes back to me as easily as breathing. I feel at home but some part of me does feel amazed still! I think it always did. I never could normalize the levels of poverty that exist so casually side-by-side with everything else that all the rest of us possess, however much or little - it is more than the person who is living out their life on the street.

My level of prior experience with Mumbai was limited to one sole visit decades ago. At the time, I had a confused impression of skyscrapers and some beaches. Now, I feel like this truly is ‘the city that never sleeps.’ Driving down from the airport at 3.00am, I was surprised to see how many people were ‘going’ to work. Of course, a lot of people live on the streets, but these were people who were going to work at 3.00am, as the taxi driver told me. Once again, I am confronted by the sight of beggars with no limbs, women with little children (not unlike my own … actually very similar to my own little one) on their hip, begging at the cross lights, and once again I feel like it is cruel beyond anything I can express.

Yet, there is a real sense of energy and being on-the-go about this place. Talking about movement, there is a constant hum of traffic outside (and inside because it carries over), and the cacophony of horns never ceases. Having now tried the kali-peeli (black-yellow, i.e., taxi), three-wheeler (aka ‘rickshaw’), an uber, and walked around to the nearby baazars, I can say that noise pollution just is - it is a fact of life. Skyscrapers right next to low lying buildings, all of which look like they are in acute need of exterior paint, make up the sprawl of this city.

Every bit of green, every decorated balcony looks beautiful.

It is truly a ‘sprawl’ in that there has been no urban planning at all. As I was talking with a Professor of Urban Planning at the time that I was observing this messy city yesterday, he agreed that this sprawl is just a testimony to the sheer rapacity of human beings, those who wield power for their own benefit at any cost. A real lack of public spirited planning (for this city) at the government, individual and corporate level.

It does, at some level (though I can see how it has played out) amaze me that with the huge amount of wealth that is concentrated in this city, there is so little city planning done. Green spaces are so hard to come by, but I appreciate every little balcony that has made a valiant effort to green it’s few square feet. It is not that nature will not take hold here - it will sink in easily, but there is no place. That said, looking out of my hotel window I see tall trees that have rooted themselves into the soil and are not going anywhere, rather like many of the denizens of this city. They too are dusty and careworn. Only unlike the people, the trees stand rooted. They watch over the early (if you can call 8.00am early) morning joggers/walkers who are working their way down the pedestrian side of the bypass to get their exercise.

View from my hotel window. And yes, that is an appropriate place to get your morning walk in Mumbai.

Only a brief visit to Dharavi yesterday, but today and tomorrow I will be traveling with SNEHA staff into Mumbai’s slums and seeing the work they have done. They were telling me how people come from the West to ‘see’ the slums. There are actually tours being offered. They were a bit surprised themselves when they said that some of the tourists actually pull aside the flimsy curtain (that serves for the door) to see how someone’s home is arranged inside. I am not sure about this kind of tourism and while it is good to educate oneself about the world, it is good also to know our own intentions and motivations. If some benefit can come of our knowledge, it is worthwhile to gather it. If we are simply gathering experiences and places to fill our own emptiness, then perhaps one should refrain from pulling aside the curtain off other people’s painstakingly arranged lives.

There are many things about this crazy city that I have left unsaid and many that I don’t know and may never fully understand, but that is not surprising. I hope you could for a minute imagine the strange, tiring mix that is Mumbai - a city of millions on the go, rushing to their destinations but really, just going about their lives.

Why care?

As I wait for my flight to India, I feel compelled to answer this question: Why care? Why care about prevention of violence against women and girls in India when there are so many other pressing causes. Time and again, as I have spoken to NGO professionals in India who are working in this field, they re-iterate this sentiment: “There is not much funding coming for this work.” “We cannot prove results in the same way as a school where you can get a headcount of students.” “There is always a shortage of funds for GBV.”

Where education and health based initiatives can translate over into numbers easily, prevention of violence results in a lack of numbers. Funding organizations and individual donors seldom appreciate this contradictory appearance of success.

However, this does not take into consideration the scale of the problem as it currently exists in India where one rape is reported every 16 minutes (as of 2019). According to the report complied for the year 2021 by the National Crime Records Bureau (a government body) crime against women rose by 15.3 per cent in 2021 from the previous year, with 4,28,278 cases registered last year following 3,71,503 cases in 2020. (NCRB's report on Crime Against Women. JournalsOfIndia. (2022, August 30). Retrieved March 8, 2023, from https://journalsofindia.com/ncrbs-report-on-crime-against-women/)

The nature of the crimes varies and only the most outrageous ones are brought to the notice of the law, albiet hesitatingly in most cases. Many families/individuals are too ashamed to bring these acts into the public sphere and the current count of even these heinous crimes like rape, kidnapping, dowry deaths, domestic violence is a gross under-representation.

A great deterrent towards reporting cases also comes from the long history of the delay and often infamous outright denial of justice as happened in the case of Bilkis Bano. The 11 men who raped her and murdered her family members (in 2002), including her 3-year old daughter, were released by the Courts in August 2022, on account of their ‘good behaviour.’

While I agree that rape is perhaps one of the more horrible manifestations of violence; the truth is that, in India, a low-level of violence persists against females in public/private/work spaces on a constant basis ,… like a hum in the background which then regularly explodes into the limelight with a shocking case like the rape, murder and hanging from a tree of two low-caste Dalit Hindu sisters in Uttar Pradesh in September 2022. (Rahman, S. A. (2022, September 16). Two teenage dalit sisters raped and murdered in India. VOA. Retrieved March 8, 2023, from https://www.voanews.com/a/two-teenage-dalit-sisters-raped-and-murdered-in-india/6750136.html#:~:text=A%20crime%20scene%20tape%20cordons,15%2C%202022.)

There is a general sense of a lack of safety for women in India and it is important to heed this sense to ensure one’s safety and survival while here. While Indian women are outspoken and visible in the public sphere nationally and globally, those of us who grew up in India and those who continue to live here know the reality on the ground.

However, despite all this, violence against girls and women in India, is not a cause that attracts a lot of attention from donors - neither Indian, nor foreign. Sadly, there is not even a lot of awareness about this problem outside of India. Working towards an end that is not a quick fix solution requires patience and perservence as well as a vision of what can be, of what a more equitable society would look like in the Indian context.

Within India, there is an existing patriarchal setup that does not care to be questioned or disturbed. It is deeply rooted not just in the structure of society but in the psyches of both men and women. It is deeply rooted in our traditional practices and beliefs, in our mythologies and out-moded readings of religious texts and customs.

The Ahimsa Pilot Inititiative is a step towards supporting voices for change in a hostile environment where the work is all uphill and the goal is yet distant.

Blogging from India in March 2023

Monday, March 6th, Julie Arcari (our Board Member) and I will be leaving for India in order to visit SNEHA and see their work in person. We are also hoping, while we are there, to visit other non-profits to evaluate their fitness for contributing to the work of violence prevention against women and girls in India. We hope you will join us on this trip and follow as we post about what we learn.