2004
Confronting domestic violence, female infanticide, acid attacks and dowry-related deaths, women’s organizations in India have successfully campaigned for improved laws to prosecute such violence. In addition to physical and mental cruelty, criminal offenses against women include harassment for the purpose of obtaining dowry, punishment for the lack of dowry, and conduct that is likely to drive a woman to suicide.
[1]
“In some ways, Indian women are the strongest, fiercest, and hold more leadership positions than women anywhere in the world,” says Eve Ensler of V-Day. “Yet the number of cases of violence against women, bride beating, and rape is shocking.”
With Gujarat’s religious riots in 2002, Indian women activists have also denounced impunity and state inaction against the sexual violence that especially targeted Muslim women—and still threatens them today. A woman survivor from Anand, Gujarat, reports, “Nobody has asked for forgiveness or shown regret. We cannot say anything. Rapists stop women in the street to humiliate them: `Didn't we have her, haven't we done this or that to her?' We don't speak about this at home, because then our men will get very agitated.”
[2]
“Celebrating the Indian Woman Warrior,” V-Day’s delegation in March 2004 found common ground with Indian activists determined to promote women’s status and security in the region and worldwide. In the V-Day model of outreach, performances, and network-building, Eve Ensler, Jane Fonda, and Marisa Tomei joined a cast of Indian and Pakistani actresses for eight sold-out shows of
The Vagina Monologues and “Necessary Targets” in Himachal Pradesh, Mumbai, and Delhi, raising funds for two shelters for women and girls. Intense national and local press coverage put a new spotlight on Indian women’s experiences of violence and local efforts to confront it.
V-Day was hosted by Jagori and Sangat, two leading South Asian feminist organizations, for a 3-day conference in Delhi called “Confronting Violence: Recounting Resistance, Envisioning Justice.” Women from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States analyzed violence against women in South Asia as well as its relationship to fundamentalism, globalization, and militarism. The benchmarks, insights, and strategies offered by each South Asian feminist leader are found in the pages of the conference report, available for download:
Read Jagori's Report on V-Day's South Asian Conference 2004 (Adobe PDF)
“We want peace in South Asia, not pieces of South Asia,” exhorted Kamla Bhasin of Jagori. Human security was indivisible from the topic of violence against women in the region. Armed conflict was directly linked to the sharpening battlefronts within the home or caste communities. Women are often the first to feel the reactionary consequences of the build-up to conflict, in forms such as public killing for inter-caste marriage.
After the 3-day conference ended in Delhi, Kalyami Menon of Jagori wrote with this feedback:
“You were asking about the impact of the conference on our work. Well, it gave our work on violence a huge boost, the integrated framework to understand violence in various spheres that we used as the conceptual basis of the conference got validated and gave us a springboard to consolidate and expand our ongoing work on violence. We have since secured funding for the next three years from a Danish donor to implement a whole series of activities, including campaigns for public education, an interactive web database for women's groups to monitor violence at the national level, and pilot initiatives to develop community-managed models of violence prevention and redressal such as women's courts in some four or five locations. The collaboration with V-Day has given the idea of a safe space a huge impetus - we are in the process of articulating this concept in innovative ways (not just the standard short-stay home or shelter). The impacts will unfold and lower in the long term - and we are cheered and strengthened by the confidence that you will be with us on the journey as sisters and partners.”
Throughout V-Day India 2004, the delegation honored the Vagina Warriors of South Asia, both silent and vocal, who have shown grace, dignity and power in the face of formidable danger and difficulty. In 2005, Indian and Pakistani artists and activists reprise their groundbreaking performances of
The Vagina Monologues once again.
Jagori and SANGAT
Jagori (meaning “awaken woman”) was founded in 1984 by six women and one man during a resurgence of activism around issues related to violence against women. There were sustained campaigns in India against rape, dowry, domestic violence, sati (bride-burning) and a host of other issues. Jagori set up resource centers, research, help lines, and a creative space for women to express themselves as feminists, reaching out to a wider constituency of women especially in small towns and rural areas.
SANGAT is housed by Jagori. SANGAT is the acronym for “South Asian Network of Gender Activists & Trainers.” The word “sangat” in some South Asian languages means gathering or a community of like-minded people. The feeling and belief that understanding, peace and co-operation is essential in South Asia, if the region is to progress in a meaningful way, prompted the formation of this regional alliance of gender activists and trainers.
Kamla Bhasin (email)
www.jagori.org
ANHAD aims to build a secular cadre down to the village level in some select states across the country. ANHAD attempts to be a minimalist organization that will provide critical resources to all other organizations that wish to work on communalism. Since its inception, ANHAD has held workshops in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi. In Gujarat alone in six districts close to 600 activists were trained in these workshops.
Shabnam Hashmi (email)
SNEHA runs a hospital/shelter in Mumbai’s Dharavi slum, home to an estimated million people. SNEHA's center for women and children in crisis is committed to restoring the physical, emotional, and psychological health of victims of domestic violence, by providing medical services with perinatal care, and offering health education, daycare for children of working women, vocational training workshops, income-generation programs, outreach activities for street children and adolescents, and a senior center.
Dr. Armida Fernandez
Mumbai, India
1 Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code. Reported in Manushi, Issue 137, “Laws against domestic violence and abuse.”
2 “Threatened existence: A feminist analysis of the genocide in Gujarat" by the International Initiative for Justice in Gujarat, January 2004. Reported in IndiaTogether.org, January 2004.
