The Women’s Rights Workshop took place here at Sambhali Jodhpur Project.
Report by Ms. Eliane Luthi Poirier:
I organized the workshop over five days and Govind, Mukta and Tamannah all helped translate for me. On the first day, I introduced the theme of the workshop by asking the girls to brainstorm the following question: What is violence against women?
The following days focused on the specific types of violence that the girls had pinpointed, namely:
- Sexual Harassment & Rape
- Domestic Violence & Dowry Death
- Female Feticide & Infanticide
- Child Marriage
- Discrimination against Dalit women
I would introduce each type of violence by showing a video clip of a news report or pointing to a poster and asking them to comment it. |
The overall feedback from the girls was very positive. On the first day in particular, the girls were very open about sharing stories on the various forms of violence they had witnessed or encountered in their lives. Many of them were of the opinion that any form of inequality between men and women was a kind of violence. Some mentioned how differently they had been treated from their brothers, from not being allowed to play when they were kids, to having to eat their brothers’ leftovers mixed with water. What saddened me the most was that several of them also said they would not like to come back as women in their next lives.
At the end of the workshop, both Mukta and Tamannah told me that the girls felt much more confident about the prospect of getting married, which is often a source of stress for them. Many of them also wanted to know more about their rights as Dalit people, so I obtained a full copy of the 1989 Prevention of Atrocities Act, which we went through in more detail afterwards. The girls spoke of many forms of discrimination they had experienced as Dalits, such as not being allowed into certain temples or to drink tea from reusable tea cups like non-Dalits do. We encouraged them to act as role models for their communities by filing reports on these acts of discrimination and by spreading the word about this law.
Full report |
