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.
