discrimination Archives - Woman Endangered

#LetsTalkPeriod

Suparnaa Chadda — Mon, 06 Mar 2017 06:49:30 +0000

A campaign that encourages you to talk openly about Periods along with helping a marginalized woman address her menstrual solution need for upto a decade. Targeting the shame associated with a natural process of the woman’s body and encourage feminine hygiene without whispering about it.

WE or womanendangered as an initiative aims to target debilitating mindsets that affect all of us in different degrees, specifically in promoting a gender equitable society. While all kinds of approach created to help gender equity are indeed welcome, WE have chosen a proactive approach to target Gender inequity at its root cause, that of mindset. And WE are under no illusion that a dent in the mindset will happen overnight. We’ve taken many generations to get here; we will take at least a few generations to start affecting change, but only if WE start talking now. Hence #LetsTalkPeriod

The tangible outcomes of such an approach are often met with raised brows, given measuring a mindset and its evolution is a long drawn process.

But where there is a will there is a way. And when the intention is beyond motives of profit or popularity, the universe offers tangible solutions. In my own personal capacity as the curator of events for the media, marketing and advertising domain, my focus is always to have a fair representation of women on all panels, speaking & juror slots. The situation is far from being equal participation of all genders and the task is tough, only cos of the already skewed statistics towards Men in senior management positions. Further, the focus is to maintain communication, creative’s and gifts to be beyond gender stereotypes (You’d be surprised).

With #LetsTalkPeriod Womanendangered.org has partnered with an eclectic group of women at Stonesoup.in who strongly believe in a sustainable living. And one of their initiatives is to promote a sustainable menstrual solution through medical grade silicone cups.

The idea with the Period campaign is to generate enough funds through our pilot project to distribute 1000 such cups to a marginalized women living in the slums settled on both sides of the railway track in Azadpur. Why here? It’s a beginning and based on the campaign’s success WE hope to replicate it across the country. In doing so WE are providing a solution which

· Takes care of a marginalized woman’s menstrual solution need for upto 8-10 years

· Reduces health hazards in comparison to conventional pads or tampons that are loaded with plastics and chemicals which makes a woman susceptible through prolonged exposure

· Reduces the burden of waste on the planet

· Gives a platform to talk of a tabooed subject on the digital platform

WE hope to crowd source funds to distribute these cups and raise awareness in the process about periods and of feminine hygiene products, an issue that almost never gets discussed. WE continue the proactive approach addressing a debilitating mindset and providing a tangible outcome. So won’t you join us in spreading the word? Its time we talk. #LetsTalkPeriod

Note:

Womanendangered is neither an NGO nor a trust , its an initiative fuelled by the passion of like-minded people who want to contribute their bit in passing on a society which is inclusive and free of gender inequity.

For a contribution of Re. 200 or more log onto desiredwings.com/period

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THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT OF WOMEN AT WORKPLACE (PREVENTION, PROHIBITION AND REDRESSAL) ACT, 2013

admin — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 04:55:46 +0000

The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 is a legislative act in Indiathat seeks to protect women from sexual harassment at their place of work. It was passed by the Lok Sabha (the lower house of theIndian Parliament) on 3 September 2012. It was passed by the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of the Indian Parliament) on 26 February 2013. The Bill got the assent of the President on 23 April 2013. The Act came into force from 9 December 2013.This statute superseded the Vishakha Guidelines for prevention of sexual harassment introduced by the Supreme Court of India. It was reported by the International Labour Organization that very few Indian employers were compliant to this statute.Most Indian employer’s have not implemented the law despite the legal requirement that any workplace with more than 10 employees need to implement it. According to a FICCI-EY November 2015 report, 36% of Indian companies and 25% among MNCs are not compliant with the Sexual Harassment Act, 2013. The government has threatened to take stern action against employers who fail to comply with this law.

The post THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT OF WOMEN AT WORKPLACE (PREVENTION, PROHIBITION AND REDRESSAL) ACT, 2013 appeared first on Woman Endangered.

Indian sportswomen: Still the second sex

admin — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 04:31:15 +0000

You would think victory in an international sporting event would make the participants feel like superstars. With the world at their feet. And the stars in their eyes. Think again. In India, sportswomen are hardly ever role models or stars. Tennis, athletics and golf do recognise individual brilliance, but in team games like hockey, football and cricket, that’s asking for the moon.

HOCKEY: Slogans like Jassi (Jasjeet) jaisi koi nahi or “Golden girls of hockey,” rent the air as the Indian women’s hockey team beat Japan 1-0 in the finals of the Asia Cup. The win made no difference to their lives. They knew that after the party was over, it would be back to their humdrum lives — travelling by sleeper class, catching a bus to office, arguing with families over marriage plans and struggling to make ends meet with a paltry salary of Rs 5,000. “We are stars for just a day,” says Suman Bala, part of the Indian hockey team. “No one recognises us the moment we are out of the hockey field.” This, from a person who has represented India a dozen times.

Any spin-offs? “A few thousand rupees as salary and a few more as cash reward — hardly sufficient to run a family,” says a player who wanted to remain anonymous, fearing vindictive federation officials.

And that’s the way their life has been. Be it the federation, government or people — support and recognition have always evaded them. Concern too. For these golden girls, the night Bryan Adams crooned Night to remember at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium (JNS) here, it truly was a night to remember — they hardly slept amid all the music.

That’s not all. After a hard day’s training, they wake up early to wash clothes. They are kept in dormitories at the stadium while players of visiting foreign teams stay in five-star hotels. However, the secretary of the Indian Women’s Hockey Federation (IWHF), Amrit Bose, maintains that “the girls are more comfortable in the JNS room.” She even tells captain Suraj Lata Devi to “tell this to the press.” Devi obliges. Explains a player, “Many who protested against the high-handedness of the federation have been given the boot. Beggars can’t be choosers.” Is it any wonder then that rather than ask for another shirt for playing, these players prefer to wash the ones they have in the night and iron it the morning?

Jobs: Women hockey players have limited options. Most try to get into the Railways; a few unlucky ones have to be content with a constable’s job. The Railways recruit them as junior clerks; promotions happen in a few years. Few go on to be superintendents. __Travel: What’s the attraction then? Free travel passes. Domestic level players are given second-class sleeper passes while international players get AC passes. “We got them only after we won the Manchester Commonwealth Games gold in 2002,” says Surinder Kaur.

Those who miss this `gravy train’ play on a contract basis for A-I. “Apart from getting a job, there’s no other attraction in playing for India,” admits one player.

Match fees: Guess what they got after winning the Asia Cup? Rs 25,000 each. The men’s hockey team on the other hand was given Rs 1.5 lakh by Sahara India Parivar for the same achievement a few months back. Plus, the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) had promised Rs 1 lakh each. Dhanraj Pillay, for example, is an officer with IA and he’s not even a graduate. The men also endorse products and make money by attending private functions.

Promises to these girls by politicians have been galore. Rarely has the money reached them. For example, out of the Rs 10 lakh promised by Union sports minister Uma Bharti after the Commonwealth Games, only Rs 2.5 lakh has reached them.

Endorsements? “None,” says 16-year-old Jasjeet Kaur, the star of the Asia Cup. “I fail to understand why corporates don’t have faith in our capabilities,” says Devi. No sponsors means lack of funds which means lack of foreign exposure. Net result? No result.

CRICKET: Women cricketers are little known, unlike their glamorous male counterparts. Does anyone remember Mithali Raj’s record feat of 214 runs against England in 2001 — the highest score in women’s Test cricket? Some photo-ops, interviews and felicitations later, she went into oblivion. The captain of the Indian women’s cricket team, Anjum Chopra, says that people’s response, the government’s apathy and the federation’s limitations all add to the misery. “Everyone is indifferent.” she says. Even in a cricket-crazy country like ours. “The sport is the same but the treatment of women is different. However, since the rules of the game are the same, women have to work harder to achieve the high fitness levels. But the revenue is different.”

Jobs: The same as hockey players. Chopra is an exception due to her high qualifications — a post-graduate with an MBA. She’s an officer in the Bank of Punjab and gets a salary of about Rs 15,000. Most women quit cricket because they don’t find a placement. It is after all an expensive and time-consuming sport.

Match fees: When they played a Test and five one-dayers against England recently, the women were given just Rs 7,500 each. Compare this to the men who get nothing less than a lakh. As for endorsements, forget it. Only the kit is sponsored.

Travel: By train unlike the men who fly executive class. “Forget AC or first class. That’s only for players of the Railways. For the rest, it’s the same sleeper class,” says Chopra.

Training: She would love to have someone like Andrew Leipus training their team. “A professional physical trainer would take care of our injuries too.” But she knows that’s a pipe dream. They hardly have much choice in the diet as compared to men cricketers. “We don’t get a variety in juices or food items. We can’t demand it either,” she says.

FOOTBALLERS: Forget Brazil, where Ronaldo’s footballer wife Milene Dominguez is just as popular as her husband. And forget Australia where the whole women’s soccer team was photographed for a calendar.

The scene here? Women footballers try hard to get away from cooking aloo gobhi a la Bend it like Beckham, but ultimately end up doing that only. The story is the same: lack of encouragement, lack of proper planning, funds, foreign exposure, training facilities and job opportunities. They either give up the sport or take up coaching.

There was a time when Mohun Bagan and East Bengal had women’s teams. Players like Sujata Kaur have earned about Rs 40,000 in their three-month contract with East Bengal. But that’s over. There aren’t too many job opportunities for them. Most end up as police constables; some get into the Railways and Income Tax. Clerks and typists are what they end up being. As for salaries, the less said the better.

Alberto Colaco, secretary of the All-India Football Federation says, “What we lack is built and exposure. We hope to introduce more tournaments for women so that they get a lot of match practice.” But can attitudes be changed?

The post Indian sportswomen: Still the second sex appeared first on Woman Endangered.

Boys will not be boys

admin — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 04:16:46 +0000

Source : Live Mint

Inside a dimly-lit community centre in Ghatkopar, Mumbai, a group of young boys are swapping notes on, among other things, what makes a man. Many of them aren’t even old enough to shave. Their voices, though, ring loud with conviction.

“A man takes decisions at home as he is the head of the family,” pipes up a 14-year-old. “Men work outside and earn, so they don’t work at home,” says his companion. As they get comfortable, the conversation turns towards girls.

“If a boy teases a girl and she does not respond, it shows that she is a good girl. If she retorts, she is acting smart,” says a Class VII student. Another boy joins in. “If after marriage, the husband lives at the wife’s place, she becomes powerful. And if the woman moves to the man’s place after marriage, he becomes powerful. He can beat her, insult her in front of others, use her.”

The boys, residents of Amrut Nagar, a slum colony of low-income migrants, are participating in a session on gender equality, part of a youth empowerment programme started by the Society for Nutrition, Education and Health Action (SNEHA) in 2009. Since early last year, the programme, “Adolescents Gaining Ground”, has also started reaching out to young boys. “The original avatar of the initiative, called ‘Girls Gaining Ground’, was started in these areas in 2009. Initially we focused solely on adolescent girls. Over time, we realized that to empower girls, we had to involve boys as well because they are future partners,” says Garima Deveshwar Bahl, programme director, sexual and reproductive health, SNEHA. “These girls were telling us about issues like eve-teasing and we were not talking to the boys at all.”

At around 243 million, India is home to the largest number of adolescents in the world, says Unicef’s Progress for Children: A Report Card On Adolescents, released in 2012. A group that, according to a 2008 study Youth in India: Situations and Needs Study by non-profit organization Population Council, makes up 30% of India’s population. The Unicef report highlights the critical need to invest in adolescents. In India, however, government programmes have usually targeted girls. Not enough, say experts, who add there is an urgent need for large-scale interventions among adolescent boys. They point to the recent incidents of rape that have generated huge outrage. In both cases, that of the assault on a young student in Delhi in December and the more recent one on a Mumbai journalist, some of the accused are between 16-24 years; coming from a milieu much like Amrut Nagar.

“In India, the whole focus of adolescent programmes has been on early marriage and early pregnancy, which targeted girls,” says Neha Madiwala, founder trustee of Sahyog Chetak, a non-governmental organization (NGO), which works for the empowerment of adolescent girls. “We haven’t found a good methodology to address boys. The usual approach to hold talks tends to work better with girls because they are looking for opportunities to get out of the house. Boys have more social freedom.”

SNEHA uses a mix of interventions, like group meetings, vocational training and life-skills education. Communicating these messages are facilitators drawn from the community. Although boys and girls are placed in separate groups, reaching out is a challenge.

“Parents never speak to girls or boys about puberty or sexuality,” says Sanjeevani Borude, 39, peer coordinator in Amrut Nagar. “One mother stopped sending her daughter when we held a session on puberty. We explained to the mother that her daughter has questions and she may get the answers the wrong way or from the wrong source. It is the same with boys. Parents don’t have a problem if their sons watch porn at a video parlour but when we explain it in the context of health, they get upset. It takes a while but eventually they listen.”

“Earlier I would never listen to anything my mother said,” says Rishikesh Shankar Karale, 15, who enrolled in the programme last year. He was reluctant at first because many of his friends would mock him. Now he regularly attends with his younger brother. “I have come to understand how hard my mother works at home. I help her now.”

An impact report, done six months after the intervention started, is showing encouraging results, especially when it comes to health matters like puberty and HIV; not so much when it comes to changing gender attitudes and perceptions. Clearly that will take longer. Over 70% of boys and girls agreed that both girls and boys are entitled to equal freedom; nearly a 20% improvement. When it comes to educating girls and sexual harassment, however, the improvement reported is not as significant. “What this shows is that we need to focus on gender very strongly,” says Bahl.

Pranita Acharya, gender, poverty and HIV/AIDS specialist, International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW), agrees. In 2008, ICRW, along with CORO (Committee of Resource Organizations) for Literacy and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, initiated the Gender Equity Movement in Schools (GEMS) programme in Mumbai, which, specifically addresses gender-related issues. The initiative is in place in 45 municipal schools and reaches out to over 8,000 children between 12-14 years from low-income groups.

Through role playing, comic strips and interactive activities, students are encouraged to rethink social norms and question gender biases. Led by facilitators, children discuss what makes for healthy relationships. “Classroom discussions help students think about and question social norms. Facilitators encourage them to challenge stereotypical ideas about men and women,” says Acharya.

At the start of the GEMS programme in 2008, little over 20% of boys and girls supported gender equality. A year later, this grew to 53% of girls and 39% of the boys. There was greater support for girls pursuing higher education and marrying later and of boys helping in household work. The initiative is now being scaled up by the Maharashtra government.

“Evidence shows that reaching out to boys, even as early as of 8-10 years, is critical,” says Rema Nanda, founder, NGO Jagruti Trust, which conducts youth leadership programmes in rural Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan. “This is what we are seeing in different parts of the world. And you have to reiterate the message over and over again to get men to change their behaviour.”

The big picture, Nanda goes on to add, will not change unless violence against women ceases to be an individual problem. “In most of the successful interventions in South Africa and Latin America, men and women have agreed violence against women is a community’s problem. Unless that happens here, we cannot progress.”

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