DIRECTOR'S NOTE

Dear Friends,

The second quarter of 2013 opened on a note which once again hurt the cause of women and children in India. A five year old girl was brutally raped and left to succumb to pain and shame in the national capital. While the incident weakens our hearts, it further strengthens our resolve of battling violence against women in India.

Our project, Meri Shakti Meri Beti, has been promoting the cause of anti-sex selection robustly, throughout Delhi. We have created a constant engagement mechanism to sensitize society.

Violence against women is not just an Indian phenomenon. It is a global reality. I lent my solidarity and support, by participating in a conference which was held in Turkey, to foster a movement towards liberation in the Middle East. Addressing violence is a key development goal and is central to achieving gender equality. We have initiated a flagship research on Violence Against Women in Politics to analyze the prevalence of violence in national elections and identify measures to combat this in India, Nepal and Pakistan.

CSR is working towards sensitizing society through the 'Engaging men and boys in countering VAW- A new generation of change makers' Project. This multi-component project aims to counter gender insensitivity in society to promote equality and end violence.

The Gender Resource Centre (GRC) which was started in partnership with Mission Convergence, Government of Delhi, continues to flourish as a state-sponsored unit for women empowerment. We have organized several awareness campaigns and initiated vocational courses for women such as stitching and beauty culture.

As we move ahead this year, I thank the entire team of CSR and all its stakeholders who continue to support the cause of women empowerment with relentless work and encouragement.

Dr. Ranjana Kumari

INITIATIVES IN GENERATING AWARENESS ABOUT VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Gender Sensitization of the Law Enforcers

A Gender Sensitization Training for Delhi Police was executed on 28 April 2013. The training conducted with the police personnel of the Hauz Khas Police station was a well planned and structured venture. Several months of discussions and brainstorming finally gave way to a training manual. (This is present on the Special Police Unit for Women & Children website, open to public access: www.spuwac.com)

Similarly, CSR conducted a 3-day training on gender sensitization with the personnel of the Central Industrial security Force (CISF). The training was part of an initiative by the CISF authorities for which CSR was invited to facilitate. This was to help their officers develop a sense of empathetic responsiveness towards the women who form part of the citizenry they strive to protect.

Celebrating the Girl Child: Kanya Janam Mahotsav

A celebration of the birth of the girl child is done in communities by the Research team through its event 'Kanya Janm Mahotsav'. The objective is to change the perception of the people towards girls and send across the message that the birth of girl children should be celebrated, not mourned.

On 28th June 2013, the Research team of CSR celebrated Kanya Janm Mahotsav in Narela, Delhi. Dr. Manasi Mishra, Head, Research Division, addressed the gathering and spoke on the issue. A member from the audience mentioned that his bride was from Orissa. Dr. Mishra asked him the reason for this. The reply he gave was that, “because we had no option here”. This situation is a direct outcome of the declining sex ratio in the national capital. To address the issue, Kanya Janm Mahotsav is being celebrated as part of the GE-MSMB project.

Partnering with Asia Foundation to Create a New Generation of Changemakers

The Asia Foundation and CSR have come together to address this through a multiple-component project: Engaging men and boys in countering VAW- A new generation of changemakers. It aims to deal with countering gender insensitivity in society to promote equality.

Component 1: Gender Sensitization Workshops with the Delhi Police
Component 2: Gender Sensitization Workshops with Community Men and Change Makers
Component 3: School Based Gender Sensitization Programs

At the root of gender inequality and discrimination against women throughout India is the patriarchal relationship between men and women. It is thus, necessary to focus on changing mindsets of boys and men by engaging with them. There is a strong need to sensitize school going boys, law enforcement agencies and community men so as to build communities in which women are respected and valued as equal members. Empowering women remains an essential part of countering violence against women. But, including men in this dialogue process is essential for a comprehensive and robust approach in addressing gender power relations and violence.

So far we have had 13 trainings in the community, schools & with the police. A total of 36 trainings will be completed in a span of 12 months.

Preet Vihar Fights Against Sex Selection

On 30th May 2013, the Research team of CSR established a Community Against Female Foeticide (CAFF) in Preet Vihar, New Delhi. The meeting was conducted in a local temple.

The objective behind establishing CAFFs is to enable a local body to keep a vigil on its immediate community and take suitable steps in case any sex selective activities is observed. The Research Division has established a number of such CAFFs in different locations in the city.

The meeting started with screening of two short films on sex selective abortion. This was followed by an interactive session in which Dr. Manasi Mishra, Head of Research Department, shared information and her experience of working against sex selective abortions and encouraged the audience to speak their mind on the matter. Research Welfare Associations (RWAs) can play an instrumental role in bringing about the much needed attitude change in the society by creating awareness. This can be done by discussing the issue in their meetings and discouraging the practice whenever and wherever they encounter it. A culture of self-censorship was encouraged.

After the initial reluctance women started sharing their views and experiences. A 70 year old participant told the team that she has three grand-daughters and she is proud of them all. It is the upbringing that decides whether or not the child, girl or boy, will turn out to be a good human being. Young mothers of even the 21st century are discriminating between their children. The session made the members rethink the belief system which most people accept unchallenged.

Mega-Health Camp Organized in Usmanpur

The Gender Resource Centre (GRC) which was established in partnership with Mission Convergence, Government of Delhi, has taken flight in the Usmanpur area of Delhi. It promotes women's empowerment through a variety of vocational trainings such as stitching and beauty culture.

A mega health camp was organized on June 29, 2013 to promote the importance of health in the community. Medical experts ranging from opthamologists, gynaecologists, paediatricians and general physicians were called in. Sanitary napkins were made available at subsidized rates. 222 beneficiaries took part in the camp.

NEW INITIATIVES FOR EMPOWERING WOMEN

Improving Safety in Delhi Buses

Delhi Transport Corporation serves 5,383,896 passengers every year. Its buses zigzag over a thousand different bus routes across this maze of a city, serving an area of 1484 square/km. (Just imagine, that's twice the size of Bahrain). On paper its one of the most brilliant public transport systems in the world, though in practice, most of the time it's quite a torture for the passengers.

As per formal recommendations a bus should not have more than 56 passengers, usually they carry twice the number. In our efforts to improve this situation, we used tools like RTI & the most effective methodology of 'registered post'.

Since March we have been in constant communication with various authorities in Delhi (Transport ministry, Chief Minister's office, Governor's office) informing them about the maximum number of passengers allowed (they had no clue, until we filed the RTI). Must say it's been a positive experience where the DTC have firstly admitted that they require a fleet of 11,000 buses to achieve this number in comparison to the 5,500 they have presently. Secondly, they have come up with a rough plan to achieve this number through public private partnership.

In our last communication we have requested for a more concrete road map to achieve this goal. Hopefully we are able to have a comfortable public transport system for all soon. For details do visit: www.facebook.com/media

Time to Say No to Google Porn!

There are more than 44 million people in India who have access to Google play which lets them download digital content including books, music and videos.

Children are encouraged to explore a variety of adult games. This is because these games are conveniently placed on the same list which features apps like 'Chotta Bheem' or 'Ninja Jump'! Google Play as a platform caters to all age groups and does not differentiate between users or content. All age groups flick through the same list of content which are categorized as 'games', 'live wallpaper' and others.

Google's own policies state that they don't allow content that contains nudity, graphic sex acts or sexually explicit material - but the content is still accessible to everyone!

CSR initiated a petition against Google to segregate 'adult' content from normal apps. The petition can be accessed online at: www.change.org

Women Leadership in Water Conservation and Climate Change

In collaboration with the Hanns Seidel Foundation, CSR is looking into enhancing the role of Women leaders for Water Conservation & Climate change. In the last 3 months we have focused on developing a training module for elected women representatives of rural Rajasthan. In order to begin the design of the module the team conducted site visits in Delhi, Rajasthan and Ahmedabad to various organizations such as Center for Science and Environment (CSE), TERI and CEE Ahmedabad. Ms. Blessing Okorougo (an AIF Clinton fellow) and Dr. Manish Tiwari (an expert on water conservation in Rajasthan) conducted site visits to the Thada School in Alwar, Centre for Environmental Education (CEE) in Ahmedabad and the Jal Bhagirathi Foundation (JBF) in Jodhpur. The goal of these site visits was to assess various training programmes focusing on water and environmental education and to assess possible resources for the design of the CSR training module. Presently we are in the phase of creating our first draft which will be piloted in the coming weeks.

Reaching Out to End Sex Selection

In a unique and first of its kind effort, CSR organized a public awareness campaign outside a metro station, on the issue of declining sex ratio.

The campaign was held outside the Rajiv Chowk metro station in Delhi on May 22, 2013. This was done to target public places which are frequented by people from all class and caste. Furthermore, Rajiv Chowk is among one of the most crowded metro stations in Delhi and after a feasibility study, the research team chose this particular place purposively so that the message could be spread to the maximum number of people.

The research team dressed in black was sporting messages written on white paper. The message read that the aborted female foetuses could have grown up to become presidents, prime-misters, pilots, scientists or journalists. Then, banner and hoardings were put up to make the public aware about what is going to happen and also to show the facts and figures about the current status of sex ratio in Delhi. The campaign began with a street play 'Pukar' performed by the 'Mehak Group', in which they urged the audience not to engage in this evil practice.

After the street play, Dr. Manasi Mishra, Head of the Research division elaborated on the current situation by giving statistics and highlighting the connection between the declining sex ratio and rising crime against women like rape, stalking and eve teasing. She also spoke about the PC/PNDT Act in place against sex determination and various impediments in its implementation. The negative social consequences of gender based sex selection were also highlighted.

A signature campaign followed and the public response was highly encouraging. However, it was observed that men were more forthcoming than women. The youth enthusiastically participated and put their thoughts on the signature cloth.

Owing to the success of this event, similar initiatives were taken outside other metro stations in the city.

Rehabilitating the Rescued Victims of Human Trafficking

CSR is conducting a research on 'Anti Human Trafficking and Multi-Stakeholder Involvement in the Rehabilitation of Rescued Persons: Ensuring Rule of Law and justice delivery in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha'. Although there have been tremendous efforts in preventing and combating human trafficking, it still remains the largest organized crime network. As a huge void exists in the rehabilitation of the rescued persons. Economic rehabilitation of trafficked victims is important to make them more self-reliant. Probably the only way to ensure they are not pushed back into the human trafficking nexus.

The study intends to carry out:

• Need assessment of possible economic rehabilitation of the rescued and vulnerable trafficked women and girls.

• Market survey of the appropriate jobs/vocations available in the corporate world and business houses for such rescued or vulnerable women.

• Procurement of above mentioned data and creation of comprehensive document regarding availability of economic opportunities to be used for web portal development.

• Consultation meetings of the stakeholders including police officers will be organised so as to involve their participation and contribution in the economic rehabilitation of the rescued women.

• Development of interactive web portal to ensure sustained linkage between the job seekers and the job provider.

• Identification of an appropriate agency to upgrade the web portal from time to time.

Campaign Against Domestic Violence Continues

After the completion of the first phase of the 'National Advocacy Campaign on Central Scheme and Budgetary Allocations for Implementation of the PWDV Act' project with Oxfam, CSR has moved on to its the next phase. There have been several key outcomes resulting from advocacy efforts in the first phase, including:

• The development of the Scheme for the Effective Implementation of the PWDVA (Which has many elements of the proposed CSS Scheme), by Krishna Tirath, Minister for women and child development.

• The Ministry of Women and Child Development has formulated a scheme for `Assistance to States for effective implementation of PWDV Act, 2005', as a component of the Umbrella Scheme for Protection and Empowerment of Women for implementation during the remaining years of the 12th Plan. The scheme will be implemented on 75:25 sharing pattern with the state Governments.

• 6 questions were raised by Members of Parliament on the implementation of PWDVA in the 2013 budget session of parliament

• Assistance to states for the implementation of PWDVA through an umbrella Scheme on Protection and Empowerment of Women, to be implemented in the 2013-14 financial year, with a budget of 177.17 crores, where 132.88 crores is the Central share. Realising the adverse affects of absence of mass awareness about the Scheme, a separate amount of Rs. 1.75 crore per annum is provided to the states to create awareness among the target group.

At the inception the group had consisted of about 20 organisations or individuals, which have now leaped to 40 organisations from all over India. The second phase has been initiated in June and will extend till December, 2013.

Researching Violence Against Women in Politics

We exist in a society where “masculization of politics makes even Jhansi ki Rani, 'mardani' (masculine) ”. This was observed by a Lucknow based journalist who was interacted with, by the researchers of CSR's Violence Against Women in Politics (VAWIP) study.

CSR initiated a study on VAWIP in the states of India, Pakistan and Nepal. The research was carried out from 2002 till 2012 and the final results will be assimilated and shared by August this year. The research analysed the nature and prevalence of violence against women during state, provincial or local elections. It has also aimed to put together a mechanism to combat this violence in the concerned states.

The study aims to understand the extent of VAWIP by reaching a wider range of people (electoral candidates/their family/activists/campaigners) who have directly or indirectly experienced violence in the electoral process.

VAWIP is largely manifested through the following:

• Expectation of sexual favors or insinuating sexual misdemeanor
• Verbal violence
• Threats

The initial results of the study revealed that in India 49% of the violence was verbal while 45% was physical. The researchers also interacted with several politicians and law enforcers across the country and some of the observations were extremely revealing. A Bengaluru based police officer commented that “today politics is about illegal activities, law breaking, bribing, alcohol…all this is cannot be done by women”. Such thoughts subtly stress on the traditional domestic roles of women, which when trespassed, invoke inappropriateness in society.

'Call for Action' - Roundtable to Plan Joint Campaign Against Gender Based Sex Selection

The Census of 2011 has bared the inconvenient but hard truth that the number of girl children in the country is decreasing at a rapid rate (914 girls: 1000 boys). Studies have not only highlighted the severely skewed sex ratio but also the fact that if such a trend continues the situation will only turn bleak.

To combat this evil, Centre for Social Research (CSR) has been for a long time working on the issue of gender based sex selection. In the year 2012, CSR renewed its efforts on this front in the South-West district of Delhi through its project “Meri Shakti Meri Beti” (MSMB) – My Strength My Daughter, in association with the German Embassy.

Numerous awareness campaigns have been arranged in schools, colleges and other educational institutions. Rallies, demonstrations, social and medical audits have also been conducted. As a follow up to its earlier efforts to eradicate this evil practice in the South-west district, CSR is implementing the present MSMB project in the whole of Delhi as per the feedback received last year through its stakeholders and a social audit study. As a part of the project strategy, a Roundtable Conference was held in order to mobilize various NGOs within Delhi to form a collaborative front by putting in joint efforts in combating sex-selective abortions.

CAPICITY BUILDING AND EMPOWERING THROUGH TRAININGS

Creating a New Generation of Gender Trainers

CSR’s Gender Training Institute (GTI) in an effort to work towards enhancing the capacities of its youngs Gender Trainers organized two ‘Training of Trainers (ToT)’ between April and May. One workshop focused on legal rights knowledge and the other on Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act.

The training on legal rights was held within the CSR office and it did much to communicate the women related laws in an extremely lively as well as a comprehensible manner. The Legal Training of Trainers facilitated by Mr. Soumya Bhowmik, a lawyer practicing at the supreme court, he focused on the latest additions to the list of women related crimes in India. Eve-teasing, voyeurism, stalking and crimes to that effect which had so far been ignored by the legal mechanism were clearly explained. The changes in the legal responses to rape and other women related crimes were also discussed.

The Training of Trainers on Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act was facilitated by Ms. Jyotsna Roy, CEO and Director, TARAA. This 3-day initiative familiarized participants with professional training methodologies and become well versed with the Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act.

These trainings will be a continuous practice open to young trainers wanting to enhance their knowledge and training skills to be up to date with the ever developing Gender environment.

NETWORKING FOR CHANGE

New Women Alliances for Women's Liberation in the Middle East

A conference was held in Diyarbakir, Amed to promote the growing synergies between women in the Middle East and to foster a movement towards liberation. The conference was attended by prominent women from 26 countries. Dr. Ranjana Kumari, Director of Centre for Social Research, represented the voice of solidarity and support from India. She said that “ensuring gender equality is important because it does not come as a natural constitutional guarantee. The Indian Constitution guarantees equality but society does not ensure it. Therefore, while struggling for freedom and democracy, women have to put gender equality on the agenda.”

Women representatives from Libya, Tunisia, Egypt and Iran reached a consensus that no development in the Middle East can lead to freedom, as long as the calls for liberation are not unified. The need to recognize and act in line with the agenda of gender rights is now a matter of global urgency and not just of isolated importance.

Women Parliamentarians from Myanmar Visit CSR

A delegation from Myanmar was welcomed by CSR in June. It comprised women parliamentarians and women members of political parties of Myanmar. The group was on an exposure visit to India and was interested in themes of democracy and governance, women's rights and laws especially, Protection of women from Domestic violence Act (PWDVA) and Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act.

CSR facilitated important meetings for them with governmental agencies which were viz., the National Empowerment Mission for Women, National Human Rights Commission, National Commission for Women and All India, Women's Conference. The group visited the CSR head office where they interacted with some prominent NGOs working on women and human rights: WPC, MARG, Lawyers Collective, Institute of Social Sciences, Shakti Shalini, Navjyoti, and STOP.

It was an extremely constructive interaction, which we hope will lead to a lot of collaborative work between the India & Myanamar

South Asia Joins Forces Against Gender Based Violence

Gender violence does not restrict its blow to women. It has been seen to affect men, children and the community, just as much. Treating the problem on its surface is of little help when what it actually requires is axing its roots. A South Asia Regional Conference was hosted by the World Bank and Oxfam International, in Kathmandu between 17 and 18 June, 2013.

Dr. Ranjana Kumari participated in the two-day meet and presented a paper on Violence against Women in South Asia: Addressing the Root Causes of Violence. The paper discussed that there is sound evidence both from within South Asia and across the world that demonstrates the negative impact of violence against women on social and economic development. Violence against women has negative impacts for women's health, dignity, rights and empowerment. It also has implications for the health and of other family members, results in large economic burdens for families and communities, and impedes social development.

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