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.