A still from the film - the young girl with head scarf

It has been a while that I wanted to write about the much talked about tradition of wearing a Hijab or Burqa. The context was set even better when I saw this short Spanish film by Xavi Sala about Hijab in Europe and the discrimination young Muslim women face in a so-called “free” Europe.

See the film yourself and the message will be pretty obvious. A young school girl is being confronted by her teacher where she in various ways tries to convince the girl to take off her head scarf, which is seen as a symbol of religion. Through the 5 min conversation, we hear the various arguments in favour of the decision to ban Hijab in public schools. The teacher says “we want people to be equal, no one else is wearing a hijab why do you want to wear it? Do your parents hit you if you don’t wear it? This is a place for freedom and liberty, here we cannot allow a sign of oppression.”

The young girl reveals there is no pressure on her from any side, even her parents want her to take it off, but she simply doesn’t want to. She says, “I cannot see myself without it”

Finally she gives in, takes off the head scarf and goes inside the classroom. She takes one look at the students sitting there, none of the students appear equal so far as their physical appearance, clothes, fashion, hairdo were concerened, if one was wearing a bandana, another was wearing a cap, somebody had a weird hairstyle, another had a tattoo, others had piercings…the room was full of all kinds appearance sported by the students. Only she was not allowed to wear a Hijab because that, as per the law makers, was a symbol of religion.

Her freedom to chose whether she wants to wear the Hijab or not was given to her. It will not be too difficult to view this as Islam phobia on the law maker’s part.

In the context of Islam phobia, I read an article which talks about how the progressive Muslim community at large is urging their women to take off the Hijab. I quote,

Opinions about the hijab are often discordant and sometimes contradictory: Is the hijab a duty or a right? Is the hijab an indication of religious freedom or of submission to Islamic extremism?

On March 8th 2008 a group of Arabic websites and blogs launched the international campaign “Take off the veil,” arguing that it is a response to what they see as “intellectual terrorism” practiced by strict Islamic groups and individuals. One of the campaign’s leaders was Elham Manea, a professor at the University of Zurich, who bravely said: “My hair is not a sex symbol that I should be ashamed of, and my body is not a stage for men’s fantasies. I am a noble human being with my hair and body.”

So far so good, I think I understand both views fairly. I however have some unanswered questions. Some time back I got into this debate on twitter. It started when I made a statement on Twitter saying, “the hijab looks like a sign of oppression to me, I don’t understand how some Muslim women happily wear it.” Masarat Daud a progressive, liberal, secular Muslim woman who proudly wears the hijab immediately responded to me asking how could I make that judgment that it is oppression when I have never actually worn it. We debated for almost half an hour exchanging tweets back and forth. I will share the summary with you here.

I have never worn a hijab / burqa, but I still feel it’s oppression on the basis of how I would feel if I was asked to wear one. A big black shapeless colorless garment which covers me from head to toe I will die inside it. In Bangalore everyday while on my way to work I used to see hundreds of young girls wearing it on their way to college near ‘Commercial Street’.

Burqa clad women in a sea beach in Mangalore. Photo by Sanjukta

I remembered my college days, they were best days, of the many fun things we did, shopping was most favourite. But how much fun is it for a burqa wearing women to go shopping? Do they feel excited to buy that brand new Lee jean in store? Or that new Remanika skirt? In summers, do they go shopping for those nice pastel summer shades, how about that long over coat for the winters? Or do they not go shopping at all?

What happens to those small aspirations and desires of young girls to look nice, special, to feel good about what they are wearing, to wear something that compliments their bodies, to look at the mirror and feel nice about what she sees? These desires are all sinful?

When a girl happily makes a choice to wear a Burqa she still is not making a positive choice, it is a negative choice. She wears it because she is conditioned to think think it is the right thing for her to cover her modesty. She wasn’t born with that wisdom somebody told her that it is the right thing to do. Who said it, we don’t know, religion perhaps?

One is also not sure which part of our body exactly is the ‘modesty’. Is it our breasts or the waist or the neck line or the cleavage or the vagina? It is also not clear whether those who cover their modesty are of the impression that others who don’t are not modest. So Sania Mirza or Katrina Kaif are immodest?

When a girl is born in any family she doesn’t automatically know what she will wear when she grows up. Somebody in the family or society tells her what to wear what not to wear. We don’t come with the advance knowledge on types of garments like what is a sari, salwar kameez, trouser, skirt, long dress, short dress et all. We learn from what we see around us.

Some of us have that choice to pick and wear whatever we feel like, some don’t. That’s the difference.

I will have no problem if a girl wears a burqa because she thought it was fashionable to wear one or because she thinks she really looks nice and comfortable in it but if she is wearing it because it is a dress code given to her by her religion it becomes oppression.

That’s why in the short film I fail to agree with the message. A tattoo, a weird hairdo, a bandana or a funky caps are things available in the market as fashion items and we pick up out of our own free will. Religion or culture has got nothing to do with it. But a burqa is given to us by the religion. Whether it is forcible or not, it still remains a religious dictate.

And this oppression is not against women, the dictate that Muslim men should have beard, or Sardar men should have long hair are equally oppressive.

I will end this debate here. Will really love to see Masarat respond to this post.

In his article he had first broken the myth of ‘he is otherwise a nice guy.’ In absolutely unambigous terms he emphasizes that any man who habitually abuses his partner / wife can never be a ‘nice’ guy. Arguments like, he is nice when he is not drunk; ‘if she will not provoke him he will not be abusive; she somehow needs a bit of strict hands; are pure manifestation of our own cowardice and spinelessness which stops us from helping the victim. He further talks about the medical implications of abuse, to quote him:

Physical abuse has not just physical effects, it affects the woman’s mental emotional and social health also.

A significant portion of women who have been abused do not seek medical help for the injuries themselves, but those who do, present with non specific and chronic pain and bruises from having “bumped into something”. Women who suffer long term abuse, and are battered are found to have more injuries in the head, face, neck, thorax,  breasts, and abdomen when compared women injured in other ways. 1

Many women also have to put up with forced sex from intimate partners, which results in sexually-transmitted diseases, bleeding or infection, fibroids, genital irritation, pain on intercourse, and urinary-tract infection. Studies show that the odds of having gynecological problems is upto 3 times more in victims of physical abuse.

Mental effects of abuse are quiet profound too, some studies have shown that the risk of depression and post traumatic stress disorder was higher for abuse victims than even those who have had childhood sexual abuse.

• Fractures
• Miscarriage
• Depression
• Major Surgery
• lacerations requiring stitches
• Sexually transmitted infections including HIV
• Loss of vision/hearing

These are some of the prominent outcomes of intimate partner violence that most studies find. 2

In more than half of the cases of abuse, children are witnesses to it. And in upto 5% cases even the children are abused by the partners.

A study from rural south India showed that thirty-four percent of the women surveyed reported having ever been hit, forced to have sex by their husbands or both. Women belonging to lower caste, poorer households, having greater economic autonomy, and whose husbands consumed alcohol were more likely to report violence. Women’s economic autonomy and husbands’ alcohol consumption were significantly associated with violence, independent of caste and economic status^.

The most important points made by Anand in his piece is that how the helth care givers have no understanding of how to identify victims of domestic violence and extend help to them. There is a need to train all kinds of service providers from health care to legal on gender sensitivity and violence against women issues so that they handle a case more efficiently.

Many times health care workers who are the first to see the results of intimate partner violence fail to identify it or do nothing about it. This and the social approval for domestic abuse ensures that she “normalizes” the abuse. She is deluded, as people around her that she deserves it, or that he is otherwise nice, or that there is nothing that can be done to help her.

We need to realize that at this stage, it is no longer a personal matter, it is public. We need to step in. Perhaps there is a stressor, maybe the guy is mentally unstable, or there might be substance abuse, or maybe he is just a jerk, whatever be, if we stand by looking, we are accomplices to the slow murder of usr friend, soul first then her body.

About the author

Anand describles himself as, “A doctor tired of pill pushing and taking the road less traveled, believes in non violence, people and other impossible things.” He is a staunch supporter of women rights and gender equality, a fact that is very evident from his social media spaces like blog, twitter and facebook. We salute male heros like him who speak up against violence and ‘Ring the Bell‘ in their own way.

Read the Full Article here

When will we stop passing the buck?

People often ask me, “can your organization take this up?” In the context of some incidence of violence against woman they’ll approach an organization and ask them if the organization can take some action.

Few days back I got a call at work, a certain gentleman said there is a family in his neighborhood where a lot of domestic violence goes on, the husband apparently is a drunkard and he beats his wife frequently. So the gentleman asked me how can we help him.

The immediate thought that came to my mind was to report the matter to the police. But he said that will be too extreme a step. So I  said, “sir, to begin with do an immediate intervention, next time you hear violence take some more people with you and simply knock at their door, ring the bell literally and stop it. Tell him it is not acceptable in the society. Once you have intervened rest will follow, report the matter to Protection Officer, file an FIR at the nearest police station if need be and so on.”

But those were not the solutions the gentleman was looking for. He asked, “But what can your organization do? No body will do that kind of intervention here, Koi nahi karta hai ji, can’t the organization do something?”

I said, “if the neighbors who are the closest to the family can’t intervene, how do you expect an organization to intervene, sir?”

When he insisted I gave him the contact of Lawyer’s collective, HRLN and Jaagori because Breakthrough doesn’t do direct interventions.*

For how long are we going to pass the buck? When will we stop and do something with our own faculties — our eyes, ears, hands and heart. Our eyes see violence, we stand by and watch — what are we doing? Why do we behave like we don’t exist, what are we waiting for? A divine intervention?

In Mahabharata when Draupadi was being molested a room full of men watched. Every body watched and enjoyed some waited for a divine intervention. Are we all following that example?

The truth really is that violence doesn’t exist because husbands are drunkards or mentally ill. Violence also doesn’t exist because the family is poor or uneducated. Violence exist because we don’t stop it.

Today, ask yourself, what are you doing as an individual? Even bigger question is WHY are you NOT doing?

*Breakthrough doesn’t deal with individual cases – we do mass media campaign, mobilize, inspire, educate, revolutionize — so that individuals don’t pass the buck anymore.

DNA Reports:

The Delhi high court on Monday held that sex without marriage amounted to rape

The court rejected pre-arrest bail to a man who repeatedly had sex with a woman but refused to marry her even after their engagement.

The woman stayed with her fiancé, Nikhil Prasar, in Mumbai for a few days, “where they had fun, and then went to Delhi and stayed in a hotel where they had sex”.

When it came to fixing a date for marriage, however, Nikhil refused, on the grounds that he had learned that she belonged to a different caste.

…

He (judge) said it appears that the man did not intend to marry the woman and that was why he did not wait for sex even till his formal engagement with her.

If he were so orthodox and conservative that he broke the marriage owing to caste differences, he should not have hurried in for sexual intercourse before marriage, the justice said.

The court held that if it was not held as rape, it would “result in unscrupulous and mischievous persons taking undue advantage of innocent girls by promising marriage with them”.

Sexual intercourse before marriage amounts to rape or it will result in victimisation or exploitation of innocent girls, justice Jain said.

Sex without marriage is rape? In what mind can a judge make such comment?

The rape laws in this country is in a bad state and needs immediate reforms not even 30% of the rape victims get any justice. Instead of trying to change the law and ensure better mechanism to ensure conviction our honorable court is going about making regressive statement such as this. It is not of the Court or of any body else’ job to play moral police in today’s liberalized society which is constantly embracing human rights. Today we have legalized sexual intercourse between same sex consenting adults, under the PWDV Act we have given recognition to live in couples and even granted protection to violence against women living in with a male partner.

By labeling sex without marriage as rape the court is actually giving a bad name to sexuality on the whole.

We understand that sex without valid consent is rape, every night millions of women are raped by their husbands when he establishes sexual intercourse without her consent. But the Court and law turn blind when it comes to addressing such sexual violence amounting to marital rape. An act of love or passion outside marriage is labeled rape.

I don’t want to go into the question as to why the woman registered a case of rape against this man, she may or may not have ulteriror motives, or may be the man actually did rape her. We don’t know. But if the Hon’ble High Court thinks that they have given a judgment in favor of women by calling pre marital sex as rape I will say they have given a huge set back to the very little progress we have made in the difficult struggle of asserting our right to a healthy sexuality.

Take the poll at the right side bottom of this page

25 year old Russian woman on a business trip to Goa was allegedly raped by a Goa politician, John Fernandes. You know the rest of the drill – police, medical reports, witness, statement, retraction of statement, judicial inquiry, political blame game and no justice.

Matter reached parliament, there entered in the scene Shantaram Naik, Member of Parliament, with his mindless thoughtless statement about rape and rape victims. I would just quote him and save myself the trouble of finding more angry words to express my angst

“Rape is a heinous crime but an alleged rape of a lady who moves with strangers for days together even beyond the middle of the night is to be treated on different footings,” said Naik.

Not only did he put the onus of safety on women but also implied that women on their first dates with that random guy they met at the cafe or bar in all probability will be raped.  Naik also seems to have a problem with the media whining about such a trivial matter as rape while so many wonderful things are there in Goa.

“If we go by electronic media coverage of recent times, it appears that nothing happens except incidents of rape (in Goa),” he said.

Thankfully today in the Parliament we have many strong iconic women of substance who strongly condemn such statement. MPs like Brinda Karat, Najma Heptulla, Maya Singh, Jaya Bacchan and Ravi Shankar Prasad have strongly criticized the above statement.

In a related radio program on Radio Meow some people said while the statement is outright unfair and derogatory towards women, women should also be careful of what they are doing, with who and what time of the night, that they should not take calculated risk.

‘Calculated risk’ – what does that mean? If I am on a jeep safari in a forest and I suddenly decide to jump out of the jeep and land right in the middle of a tiger family I am taking risk. I get that. But if I decide to go pub hopping with a bunch of guys I just met in my favorite bar, and I am slim and sexy and wearing a short dress, am I taking a risk? Why, because men are animals with no control over their hunting instincts and are not worthy of trust?

What do you think? Go ahead take the Bell Bajao Poll. (At the right side bottom of this page)

The United Nations defines ‘violence against women‘ as

Any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.

In a recently concluded 3 day training workshop on ‘how to make issue based comic strips’ with its Rights Advocates groups in Lucknow, we saw our Rights Advocates narrating stories of violence manifested in the simplest of forms. Situations that would appear fairly normal in a strictly patriarchal society, were highlighted as ‘violent’ by the young participants when we asked them to script a story on the theme of gender based violence for a 4 panel comic strip.

The comic workshop was initiated as a part of Breakthrough’s Rights Advocates – Leadership Program under which various capacity building trainings are given to youth groups. The participants were mostly students of Lucknow University belonging to semi urban, middle to lower middle class. It was a mixed group of both male and females and Hindu and Muslim.

The outcome of the workshop was an eye opener of sorts on questions like, “What are the most pertinent issues that affects the youth? How do they articulate the issues and what solutions do they suggest?

Three main issues came out when we asked them to think of a story around gender based violence (1) Right to education for a girl child (2) Husbands practicing Bigamy (3) Physical abuse.

Some participants also brought up issues like ‘a girl’s right to chose a life partner, girl’s right to work etc and denial of these rights is seen as violence. Featured below are some of the interesting strips made by the rights advocates who took the training.

“Beta Kehta Hai”

This comic strip begins with a depiction of the mother favoring the male child. In the 2nd panel the girl child is seen expressing her desire to go to school just like her brother does. In the 3rd panel both her parents refuse to send her to school.

What happens in the 4th panel is where our Rights Advocates training reflects a chaged mindset. The son is seen walking up to his father and ask him “Father, if I can go to school why can’t my sister go? Why the difference?”

Thus in this story and many others the men have been shown as a change agent, as a role model who talk about gender equality and women empowerment.

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‘Hum Kisi Se Kam Nahi’

In this story the pressure that girls face to be beautiful and conform to the traditional notion of being an object at display has been raised. In the first panel a mother is shown discriminating against one of her daughter because she is ugly. (It is to be noted that even though discrimination is done by a woman she merely acts as an agent of patriarchy. In another story it was shown that the decisions were being taken by the father and merely delivered by mother)

In the 2nd panel of the story a neighbor visits their house and hears the daughter singing to herself and realizes that she has a very good singing voice.

In the 3rd panel that neighbor introduces her to somebody influential from the music industry who confirms that she has a great voice and motivates her by predicting that one day she will become a big singer and make her parents proud.

In the 4th panel the same girl is shown to have won a music competition, which is perhaps a version of the very popular Indian Idol competition.

The story reflects a girl’s aspirations to be recognized for her worth, to be loved and praised and also shows the role of popular culture in enabling a woman to realize her dreams, or even articulate her dream for that matter.

For the whole collection of comics please visit the Flickr Set.

Mallika spoke briefly about the rampant domestic violence faced by women all over the world and followed it up with a short clip of our Bell Bajao Cricket TV spot.

TED audience were thrilled with the talk. Many conference member who were from India could easily identify the campaign as one of the most powerful campaigns they have seen on TV.

TED is an annual conference where some of the world’s leading thinkers and doers are invited to share what they are most passionate about. “TED” stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design but the event has over time broadened showcasing ideas that matter in any discipline.

TED India saw a line of strong and inspirational speakers who are part of the global feminist movement, including Kavita Ramdas, Director of Global Fund for Women; Eve Ensler, author of the phenomenal Vagina Monologues; Dancer and now Member of Parliament, Mallika Sarabhai and Sunita Krishnan, founder of Prajwala.

This was the first time TED conference was being held in India and I think it was great for Breakthrough to have a presence in it. The conference was held in Infosys campus in Mysore from 4th to 7th Nov 09.

While I couldn’t find any information regarding this campaign on the Ministry’s website I wondered is it because our government is not very web2.o savvy or is it because they would rather not keep any trace of such campaigns lest we start keeping a tab on them and follow it up.

Though I couldn’t find any details regarding the basis of choosing these 25 women panchayat members and other details regarding the steps of implementation of the campaign, on the face of it, the idea seems to be good. That said, I tend to feel that the onus of addressing the problem of domestic violence / violence against women in general is still on women and men are not being integrated in the process.

On the other hand ‘Bell Bajao’ as a campaign addresses men asking them to take a stand against violence against women. The campaign urges men to not be silent witness to violence, take an immediate action against the abuser even if it is something as small as ringing the door bell and bringing a halt to the abuse.

Skeptics may say, “Is ringing the bell an action enough?” Ringing the bell is not be the only solution, but is one of the first action men and boys can take. It is their entry point in this fight against domestic violence against women.

For more information watch the Bell Bajao campaign videos.

Photo: A woman going home at the end of the day near the ghats of river Tungabhadra in Hampi, Karnataka, India. Photo credit: Sanjukta

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Disclaimer:

The thoughts and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by Breakthrough or any other member of this blog.