Relief offer for unwed mothers hits a raw nerve

PALAKKAD: Various tribes and social organisations in Attappady have come out against the decision of the State government on Wednesday to provide one acre (0.4 hectare) of land and a monthly pension of Rs.1,000 to unwed tribal mothers.

Eswari Reshan, district panchayat member, said on Thursday that the decision was “an insult not only to tribal women but also to womanhood.”

She said some tribal women had come to her protesting against the reopening of old issues, saying that to get financial assistance, they were being forced to file cases against the men who had deserted them. Doing so would aggravate the stigma they faced for giving birth out of wedlock.

Rather than give relief, she said, the government should bring to book the men who had deserted the women after having a child or two. Some women had been abandoned by men who had legally married them. The relief announced would only encourage those who wanted to exploit women.

Ms. Reshan said the government should enforce the law against such cheating and exploitation. Provision of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act should be invoked.

On the government’s promise of land, Ms. Reshan said most unwed mothers owned two acres to five acres of land, but had no resources to cultivate it. The government should fund cultivation and offer employment and educational opportunities.

‘Atrocities will go up’

P.R.G. Mathur, expert in tribal affairs and former Director of the Kerala Institute for Research, Training and Development of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (KIRTADS), said the government’s decision would promote atrocities on tribal women, besides being an insult to them and womanhood.

Would the government apply the same yardstick to unwed mothers of other communities in various parts of the State, he asked.

Dr. Mathur said the government’s duty was to implement the law and bring the culprits to book. The men, not the government, should be made to pay for the crime.

He cited examples from Madhya Pradesh of men who had ditched tribal women being brought before the law and made to marry the victims and look after their family.

He said that Kerala government should immediately conduct a survey on unwed mothers in tribal areas.

M. Sukumaran, president, Attappady Samrakshana Samithi (protection committee), said no civilised society could accept the government’s decision, as it went against the law of the land.

http://www.hindu.com/2011/05/27/stories/2011052758170600.htm

As Wealth and Literacy Rise in India, Report Says, So Do Sex-Selective Abortions

NEW DELHI — India’s increasing wealth and improving literacy are apparently contributing to a national crisis of “missing girls,” with the number of sex-selective abortions up sharply among more affluent, educated families during the past two decades, according to a new study.

The study found the problem of sex-selective abortions of girls has spread steadily across India after once being confined largely to a handful of conservative northern states. Researchers also found that women from higher-income, better-educated families were far more likely than poorer women to abort a girl, especially during a second pregnancy if the firstborn was a girl.

“This has deep implications,” Shailaja Chandra, one of the study’s authors and the former director of the National Population Stabilization Fund, said Tuesday during a panel discussion after the release of the findings. “The scale is very large and requires intervention beyond what has been done so far.”

The study, being published in the British medical journal The Lancet, is the latest evidence of India’s worsening imbalance in the ratio of boys to girls. The 2011 Indian census found 914 girls for every 1,000 boys among children 6 six or younger, the lowest ratio of girls since the country gained independence in 1947. The new study estimated that 4 million to 12 million selective abortions of girls have occurred in India in the past three decades.

The government has enacted legislation intended to prevent parents from using ultrasound screenings or other technologies to decide whether to abort a girl. Yet despite such laws, the situation has not improved. Few medical practitioners who violated the law have been prosecuted, while regulation of private health care providers is very limited.

India is similar to many Asian countries in that many families prefer boys. In Hindu funeral rituals, only males, preferably a son of the deceased, may perform last rites; sons also usually inherit property (while daughters are married into other families) and carry on the family name. A cultural preference for sons is also common among many Indian Muslims.

Dr. Prabhat Jha, a lead author of the study, noted that the use of sex-selective abortions expanded throughout the country as the use of ultrasound equipment became more widespread. Typically, women from wealthier, better-educated families are more likely to undergo an ultrasound, Mr. Jha said, and researchers found that these families are far more likely to abort a girl if the firstborn is a daughter.

“This is really a phenomenon of the educated and the wealthy that we are seeing in India,” said Mr. Jha, director of the Center for Global Health Research at the University of Toronto.

Census data has already confirmed that the problem has accelerated since 2001. The 2011 census found about 7.1 million fewer girls than boys under the age of 6, compared with a gap of roughly 6 million girls a decade earlier.

The Lancet study was conducted by researchers from several partner institutions, with the United States National Institutes of Health providing some of the financing. About 250,000 births from 1990 to 2005 were examined, using data from surveys conducted by India’s National Family Health Survey, as well as census data from 1991 to 2011.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/world/asia/25india.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper

Headmaster held for rape bid on maid

KISHANGANJ: Police on Thursday arrested a school headmaster after a mob severely assaulted him for making a bid to outrage the modesty of a school maid engaged for cooking midday meal for the school children.

The incident took place at Jave village under the Bhawanipore police station area in Purnia district on Thursday afternoon. The maid was allegedly summoned by headmaster Raj Kumar Harijan to a room in the school where he allegedly tried to outrage her modesty. As she raised an alarm, villagers gathered and caught the headmaster red-handed, a police officer said and added the mob was so furious that the headmaster would have been lynched had police not reached in time.

Incidentally, the school was closed for summer vacation. The headmaster allegedly summoned the maid by making a call on her cellphone.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-05-20/patna/29563919_1_headmaster-maid-modesty

CBI probe sought into attack on women in village

The demand for an independent probe into alleged atrocities against farmers of Uttar Pradesh’s Bhatta-Parsaul village intensified yesterday as the National Commission for Women (NCW) slammed the state government for molestation and rape of village women.
The Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), effectively supporting the claims of Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, demanded a judicial probe.
Yasmeen Abrar, acting chairperson of the women’s commission demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the incidents after a visit by its team to the affected areas.
“We have prepared a preliminary report which states that the women in the village have been molested and sexually assaulted. There are allegations that they have been raped but it could be confirmed only after all the investigations are over,” Abrar said.
The village in Greater Noida, near the Indian capital, has become the epicentre of the movement against land acquisition for an expressway project.
A protest on May 7 turned violent claiming the lives of four people, including two policemen.
An NCW team which visited the village on May 12 saw ransacked homes, horrified women, hungry and helpless children and bones of human beings lying in the ashes on the ground.
“There are bones of human beings lying with the ashes of burnt bodies. The family members of the villagers have been burnt alive. The burnt houses bear the marks of flames on the walls. Villagers, especially women, are not just broken, but terrified,” said Abrar.
BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said the original problem of the farmers was being overlooked in the controversy created by Gandhi’s allegations about rape of women and discovery of bones in ashes, which have been denied by the government of Chief Minister Mayawati.
“The NCW is a statutory body, they have found some facts and given a report, but what we are asking for is an independent inquiry. We are demanding a judicial inquiry in the action done by the state government,” Sitharaman said.
Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi also favoured a judicial probe. “A judicial inquiry will find precisely that (facts),” Singhvi said.
The NCW team visited Bhatta-Parsaul after a delegation of villagers met its officials and alleged rape, molestation and sexual assault of women by policemen. The report will be given to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Abrar said she did not believe in the forensic report of the state government which denied the presence of any human bones in the heaps of ashes in the village. “We have got certain proofs and pictures, which we cannot disclose now, to prove it.”

http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=436049&version=1&template_id=40&parent_id=22

Plans to recruit 20,000 women in paramilitary forces in 3 yrs

New Delhi, May 12 (PTI) The government is planning to recruit 20,000 more armed women personnel in paramilitary forces in the next three years.

According to the new plan formulated by the Home Ministry, all paramilitary forces — CRPF, BSF, CISF, ITBP, SSB and NSG — will essentially have 5 per cent of their total force strength as women personnel in three to five years and 10 per cent in the subsequent five years.

These women will be hired and deployed for general guard duties, patrolling, frisking suspects and other normal policing activities undertaken by their male counterparts.

Subsequently, the government plans to enhance the facilities being offered to women security personnel.

“We have to construct more barracks for women, toilets, creche, day-care centres besides being more considerate in granting leave. We hope that in ten years, there will be generational shift in the paramilitary forces,” an official said.

The CRPF is the first central force to have inducted women personnel in its combat ranks. The force presently has two operational battalions (2,000 women) while the third (around 1,000 personnel) is being raised currently. The total strength of CRPF is about 3 lakh personnel, making it the country”s largest paramilitary force.

The government has also begun to induct the first batch of 650 women personnel in the BSF for border guarding duties. The BSF has more than two lakh personnel on its rolls.

Other forces which have women in combat roles are the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), with about 700 women personnel, and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) force with about 800 women combatants. The total strength of SSB and ITBP is about 50,000 personnel each.

The CISF has about 1,500 women personnel on its rolls out of the total strength of about 2 lakh personnel.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/plans-recruit-20-000-women-paramilitary-forces-3-130800195.html

Women set liquor shop ablaze

KANPUR: Women fury spilled onto the streets and a country-made liquor shop was set on fire following an incident in which a 32-year-old housewife allegedly set herself ablaze after she was severely beaten up by her drunk husband in Barra area of the Industrial City on Thursday.

Police said the victim, identified as Rama Devi, attempted suicide after having quarrelled with her husband Sudhir Singh Yadav at her house in Bihari Purwa in Meharban Singh Ka Purwa, Barra, on Thursday morning. Police further said Rama was found engulfed in flames when the neighbours rushed to the spot after hearing her cries. They later rushed her to a nearby private hospital with critical burn injuries.

Sudhir, the owner of a dairy who had married Rama about six years back, was a habitual drunkard. The couple had two children. “It was on Thursday morning when Sudhir returned home in a drunken state and thrashed his wife Rama. The latter was fed-up with her husband’s regular torture and set herself on fire after pouring kerosene over herself,” informed a senior police official while talking to TOI.

As soon as the news spread in the vicinity, locals of Bihari Purwa, mostly women and children, assembled outside the victim’s house. Irked by the incident, they unanimously decided to teach the contractor and salesmen of the liquor shop a lesson. The crowd, thereafter, armed themselves with sticks, lathis, stones, bricks and marched towards the liquor vend and resorted to heavy stone pelting and arson. After ransacking it, they set the liquor shop on fire even as the contractor and salesmen slipped away.

They damaged several cartons of liquors, a generator, a water tank and set the liquor shop on fire. They said the country-made liquor shop had been opened despite opposition from the locals. This is the first protest of its kind in the Industrial City in the recent past.

They said because of the opening of the liquor shop, women and children of the area were unable to move freely. They alleged that repeated requests to the authorities had failed to make any difference. Meanwhile, DIG Rajesh Rai informed that a case had been registered against unidentified people at Barra police station and the police were now on the lookout for the victim’s husband.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kanpur/Women-set-liquor-shop-ablaze/articleshow/8171049.cms

Indian micro-credit crisis puts poor women in a bind

Budhavaripeta, India — Husaina Abdul Nabi turned to micro-credit companies in the past six years to buy a noodle-making machine, pay her disabled husband’s health bills and send her children to school.

But a crisis in India’s private micro-credit industry — fueled by a spate of suicides blamed on abusive lending practices here in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh and a subsequent legal clampdown — is driving women like her back to traditional village moneylenders.

(Rama Lakshmi/ WASHINGTON POST ) – NAGALUTI , INDIA:   Lakshmidevi Narayana, 50, runs her own grocery shop which she bought with microcredit a few years ago, in Nagaluti, India.

“There have been no new loans for the last six months. Women are getting desperate now and have no other option,” said Nabi, 40, who runs a business in this hamlet making Indian-style noodles to support her family of six. The moneylender made Nabi pledge her family jewelry and charges her 120 percent interest on the loan.

“The moneylenders are back in demand now,” she said. “They are drinking our blood.”

Analysts say they worry that the prevailing climate of distrust, default and desperation in Andhra Pradesh, which has the highest number of micro-lending businesses in India, may have reversed a decade of work toward the goal of financial inclusion for poor women.

Inspired by Grameen Bank, the Bangladeshi Nobel Peace Prize-winning institution that launched the micro-credit revolution, millions of poor Indian women have organized themselves into groups since the mid-1990s to qualify for small, uncollateralized business loans. India’s formal banking system, with just 30 percent of its branches in rural areas, has long been inadequate to meet the credit needs of most rural households.

In the past few years, scores of for-profit companies have sprung up across rural Andhra Pradesh, handing out small, easily obtained loans. The industry grew at a rate of 70 percent annually, but loan recovery practices were often coercive. The state government attributes at least 93 suicides to abuses and has imposed a strict law that observers say has brought the industry to a halt.

“If there are a few road accidents in the night, you don’t ban all nighttime traffic,” said Vijay Mahajan, the president of the Microfinance Institutions Network and the head of Basix, one of the oldest micro-lending companies. “There is no doubt that there was widespread wrongdoing by three or four companies, but the new law is draconian.”

The political backlash against the companies has also triggered widespread willful default by women across Andhra Pradesh, where about $1.5 billion in unpaid loans has accumulated.

“When the loan recovery officers come to the village, we chase them away,” said Ramanamma Annayya, 35, of Nagaluti village, who runs a granite mine and wears a man’s shirt over her floral-printed sari. She has four unpaid loans. A woman in her village killed herself in September by drinking pesticide after micro-credit companies harassed her when she defaulted.

“Now we want the government to write off all these loans given by the private companies,” Annayya said.

That trend worries many who built the movement.

“It took us so many years to demonstrate that poor women are creditworthy too,” said Vijay Bharati, a woman who developed women’s self-help groups in 27 villages. “But the women who were so regular in repaying for the last 15 years are now waiting for a waiver of their loans. This is damaging our movement.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/indian_micro_credit_crisis_puts_poor_women_in_a_bind/2011/04/21/AFpckbsE_story.html?wprss=rss_world

Diktat prohibiting women from taking up jobs withdrawn

Dehra Dun, Apr 25 (PTI) The diktat by a local panchayat in Uttarakhand”s Haridwar district prohibiting women from taking up jobs has been withdrawn.

“Women in Godawali and Sarai villages of Haridwar district have started going to work in factories in the nearby industrial area after the diktat was withdrawn by the panchayat,” District Magistrate, Haridwar, R Meenakshisundaram said today.

The village panchayat had last week issued the decree banning women from pursuing jobs, saying it was a disgrace to their religion and families.

The panchayat had ruled that a woman can go to work only when at least one male member of her family also works at the same place so that she can be escorted by him.

It had threatened that a woman found offending the decree would be whipped publicly and a fine of Rs 5,100 would be imposed on her family, which would also face social boycott from the community.

The diktat was issued after a girl of Gadowali village had eloped with a male colleague from a different community a few weeks ago.

Taking a serious note of the matter, Uttarakhand Women”s Commission had directed the district magistrate and senior superintendent of police to initiate action against the culprits.

Following intervention of the administration and police, the panchayat withdrew the diktat on Friday.

About 18-20 women of both villages working in various factories in Haridwar”s SIDCUL industrial area were being affected by the decree, Haridwar Superintendent of Police (City) K L Shah said.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/diktat-prohibiting-women-taking-jobs-withdrawn-094900643.html

Women ransack liquor shop in Coastal Orissa

Kendrapada, Apr 25 : The women of Baro community and its nearby villages today destroyed a licensed liquor shop in their village here.

Over 50 women of the Baro community under Nikirai police station have ransacked the liquor shop and destroyed the liquor bottles worth over several lakhs rupees.

According to Bikram Kumar Sahu, the salesman of the Baro-based licensed liquor shop, the women of the locality, with the help of some local youth, came to the shop and asked him to come out.

When he did not pay any heed to their demands, the irate mob barged into the shop and threw the liquor bottles and set the signboard ablaze.

Nikirai police station officer-in-charge Manasi Patra said police had registered a case in this regard.

The salesman alleged that the women took away a cash of Rs 50,000 from the counter box after assaulting him.

No arrest has been made so far, police said, adding a ”legal action would be initiated against the women as per law”.

The women said they were forced to take law in their hands as the authority did not pay any heed despite repeated pleas.

In November last, hundreds of women, including college-going girls of Baro, had detained Energy Minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak along with two ruling party MLAs on their way to a party meeting at Pattamundai demanding closure of the shop.

http://www.newkerala.com/news/world/fullnews-196742.html

Women workers in Bihar still paid less: Survey

PATNA: A large number of women workers are still being exploited by their employers. They are paid lower wages than male workers.

Ninety per cent of women were involved in the informal sector requiring unskilled labour, and enjoyed no benefits. Most of these women still give all their earnings to their husband or in-laws and had very little say in decision-making. Most working women take full responsibility of family and have no leisure time.

These are the findings of a recent study conducted on the `Economic participation of women in Bihar’ in four districts of Bihar – Kishanganj, Vaishali, Madhubani and East Champaran.

The study was done by Equity Foundation, an NGO, supported by socio-economic research division of the Planning Commission. The study has revealed that positive change in women’s lifestyle is mainly limited to the upper and middle classes, which form only a miniscule portion of the Indian population.

Gender indicators such as poverty, health, education, reproductive and legislative rights and their implications on women’s lives are yet to reach the common men and women.

The respondents, of which 66% were illiterate, were not getting government facilities like BPL cards, Indira Awas and ration card. There is a common need for housing, sanitation and infrastructure.

Over the years, while the status of women in South India has shown signs of significant improvement, the other states, particularly the Hindi heartland states, have lagged behind, says the secretary of the Patna-based Equity foundation, Nina Shrivastava, adding “the overall condition of women in the state has remained a neglected terrain.”

In Bihar, women were found to be victim of double discrimination, one for being a women and secondly for being member of a backward state. The study claims to be the first of its kind.

The field work covered multi-caste panchayats in each of the four districts. The target group was selected randomly using stratified random sampling method from those panchayats where SHGs existed. A sample size of 2,400 women was taken (40 women from each of the five panchayats in three blocks, i.e, 600 from each district).

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-04-22/patna/29462550_1_women-workers-panchayats-shgs

Working women of Haridwar village face panchayat’s wrath

Dehradun, Apr 22 (PTI) Working women of a village in Uttarakhand”s Haridwar district have come under the wrath of a local panchayat which issued a diktat prohibiting them from pursuing jobs.

The panchayat of village Sarai also imposed a penalty of Rs 5,100 if anybody violated its order, besides four lashes in public as punishment.

Taking a serious note of the matter, Uttarakhand Women’s Commission has directed the district magistrate and senior superintendent of police to initiate action against the culprits.

Sushila Balooni, president of the commission, said she learnt about the panchayat’s diktat through media reports.

“I have asked district authorities to take immediate action on this,” she said.

According to the reports, she said, about 60 women from the village work in various industrial units in Sidcul in Haridwar.

The panchayat’s direction came on Wednesday, Balooni said, adding police forces have been rushed to the village to maintain law and order there.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/working-women-haridwar-village-face-panchayats-wrath-155900453.html

Gender-selection abortions spreading in India

Published On Fri Apr 22 2011

Muskan Goel, a 5-year-old girl in Jhajjar, India, a district where there are only 774 young girls for every 1,000 boys, the worst ratio in the country. Local business leaders, politicians and police officials say Jhajjar is a hotbed for female feticide.

Rick Westhead/TORONTO STAR

By Rick Westhead South Asia Bureau

JHAJJAR, INDIA—Muskan Goel is a beautiful 5-year-old girl with an expressive face and saucer eyes who would stand out in any crowd.

But in the north Indian farming service centre Jhajjar, Muskan commands attention simply because she’s a young girl.

She’s one of 16 girls who’ve been admitted to the school over the past year, compared to 43 boys, a symptom of this nation’s failing struggle against gender-selection.

India is a fast-changing country where luxury companies, car makers and cell-phone manufacturers all covet a piece of the growing market. But it’s also a nation with deep-rooted, centuries-old cultural traditions.

Families here have typically pined for a son, to carry on a father’s lineage, contribute to his household’s income and care for his parents as they age. Parents also want a boy because someone with their own last name is required to light their funeral pyre when they are cremated.

For the past four decades, since ultrasound machines were introduced in India, parents desperate for a son to carry on their lineage have had technology on their side, turning a cultural preference into a ruthlessly efficient girl-killing system. If their fetus is female, some mothers opt for an abortion rather than carry to full term.

That’s because even though it’s been illegal for 50 years, many families still pay costly dowries to have their daughters marry. When they do get married, those women leave their home to join their new husband and contribute to his family.

There are estimates that over the past decade alone, more than 10 million unborn females have been aborted across India.

The results of India’s latest once-a-decade census suggest that the gender-selection abortions are spreading beyond the traditional areas of devout Hindus in northern India. It shows there are 914 girls for every 1,000 boys under age 6, a steady decline from 927 girls in 2001 and 962 girls in 1981.

(Boys outnumber girls by a ratio of about 106 to 100 at birth in Canada, according to Statistics Canada).

Nowhere is the disparity greater than in Jhajjar, a district of wheat, mustard and grape seed fields in India’s Haryana state where there are only 774 girls for every 1,000 boys. The district is a centre of female feticide, local business leaders, politicians and police officials say.

But in Jhajjar township, a community of 50,000 that shares the same name as its larger district, opinion remains sharply divided over whether the trend is a cause for concern.

While some local leaders say more education and better policing is needed to stop the practice, others contend there’s nothing to worry about. Abortions, they say, help limit the size of families, which is a positive step towards improving maternal health, while women from other parts of India offset the shortage of marriage-eligible women.

On a recent weekday, Usha Gehlot ushered several visitors through Kidz Shaishav, a school she founded four years ago in Jhajjar for children aged two to seven.

Gehlot said she sees firsthand the effect of selective abortions in her classes. Of the 59 students she has admitted since January 2010, 43, or 75 per cent, are boys. While some families may simply choose not to send their daughters to school, Gehlot suspects something more sinister is responsible for the skewed figure — female feticide.

“It is a big problem,” Gehlot said. “When you have so many more boys, they get more aggressive, and we see that in our class. I think you’ll see more problems in the future with violence and rapes because of frustrated men.”

In Haryana and other states, educators have struggled for years to coax women to stop going to “kudi-maar,” or “daughter-killers.” Some officials have pushed state governments to pay families a bonus for having a daughter, while others pressed for changes to Indian law.

In 1994, India’s parliament passed a law calling for a prison term of up to three years and a fine of $320 for anyone who administers or takes a prenatal sex-determination test.

Not everyone in Jhajjar is worried about the widening gender ratio.

Sitting in a crowded chai shop, amid a row of two-storey grey concrete buildings, city councillor Kishor Saini gestured to a nearby open sewer.

“That is our biggest problem,” he said. “Sewers and drinking water. Many parts of our city don’t have water supplies and the government pipes are leaking.”

Saini says he doesn’t consider feticide a crime, or even a pressing social problem.

“The first thing that comes into peoples’ mind is to have a boy,” he shrugged. “It used to be that parents had three or four or five kids and they didn’t give a damn if they had a girl. But now they want smaller families and they do care.”

While several bachelors complain that already there aren’t enough eligible brides in Jhajjar, Saini says that’s not a worry. Haryana is a wealthy state that attracts migrant workers, and their daughters, from poor states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

“There are women to be married,” Saini said.

After spending less than an hour in town, several visitors this week were told about two health clinics in Jhajjar that purportedly provide ultrasounds and abortions.

A female journalist working with the Star entered the first clinic on Wednesday afternoon and told a doctor in charge that she was pregnant and wanted to find out if she was carrying a girl. The doctor nodded and provided the name and address of Hemlata, a doctor at another clinic.

A few minutes later, the reporter introduced herself to Hemlata. Operating out of an office barely bigger than an office cubicle, Hemlata spent 15 minutes grilling the journalist, at one point demanding her cell phone to see if their conversation was being recorded.

“This is so dangerous,” Hemlata said. “Can I trust you?”

Ultimately, Hemlata said she wouldn’t help and ended their conversation.

Later, Hemlata said in an interview that she doesn’t offer the illegal ultrasounds or abortions to anyone.

“I don’t allow anyone an ultrasound before they are six months pregnant unless they are bleeding,” she said, sitting next to her examination room, which consisted of little more than a bench, a flashlight and a box of disposable plastic gloves.

Hemlata was asked how the gender ratio has become so lopsided in Jhajjar if no one is performing illegal ultrasounds and abortions.

“Maybe it’s because of miscarriages and bad pregnancies,” she said.

Police inspector Ajmer Singh says that while he considers the illegal abortions tantamount to murder, he’s helpless without a complainant.

“Who’s going to complain?” asked Puchalapalli Sandhya, a social activist in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh who has worked on women’s rights issues for decades.

“The mother of the unborn won’t, and neither will the ultrasound operator.”

Sandhya said the only solution to India’s female feticide debacle is improved education, which will give a woman the chance to generate a monthly income when she gets married, a development that should bolster her leverage in family decisions.

“We have to keep pushing to ensure that young girls become better educated,” Sandhya said.

“Right now, too many women just feel guilty for being women,” she said. “Having a girl baby is a burden. It’s in the blood here and it’s something that has to change.”

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/979111–gender-selection-abortions-spreading-in-india

Haryana widows battered to death, accused of being in a lesbian relationship

Police arrested a 23-year-old man, the nephew of one of the women. He was on parole, having served a sentence for rape.

Eyewitnesses told police he killed his aunt and another woman in full view of other villagers, after he accused them of being in a lesbian relationship.

Haryana is a deeply conservative and patriarchal region.

Correspondents say that so-called “honour killings” are relatively common in the area.

There have been numerous cases in rural Haryana where women – and men – defying age-old notions of tradition and family honour have been ostracised, murdered or even publicly lynched, correspondents say.

The latest killings happened late on Sunday at Ranila village.

The accused reportedly began beating one of the women, identified as 35-year-old Suman, with a wooden club after accusing her of having an “unnatural affair” with his aunt Shakuntala, eyewitnesses told the police.

A few minutes later, he dragged his aunt onto the village street and beat her to death in front of local villagers who were too scared to intervene, local journalists say.

The two bled to death as the villagers watched.

“[He] threatened other villagers not to help the widows or call for medical help,” a police official said.

Police said he later told them that the women were of “loose character” and that they “deserved their fate”.

He said he had killed the women to protect his “family’s honour”.

Haryana doctor held for sex determination test

Chandigarh, April 20 (IANS) A doctor and his assistant in Haryana’s Karnal town were caught red-handed Wednesday while they were conducting a test on a pregnant woman to determine the foetus’ gender.

A team of district authorities and health officials, led by Karnal Civil Surgeon Vandana Bhatia, caught Brij Bhushan, who runs the Karnal Ultrasound Centre, and his compounder Amit while conductingthen sex dtermionation test, whih is banned under law. Karnal town is some 120 km from here.

The team was accompanied by police officers.

The officials seized a China-made portable ultrasound machine and other equipments.

‘The woman, who had come there for the test, tried to run away by jumping over a wall. However, the members of the team caught her. The woman has been identified as Neelam, resident of Sampla Kheri in district Kaithal,’ a state government spokesman said here.

The woman has a one-and-a-half year old girl and was three months pregnant.

Earlier in February this year, the doctor’s clinic in another part of Karnal was sealed for carrying out sex determination tests.

Bhushan had then hired the new place in a residential area to carry out his illegal activities.

Haryana has the worst sex ratio among all states in India – 877 females per 1,000 males. The national sex ratio, as per Census 2011, is 940.

‘Action would be taken against the doctor and his compounder under the provisions of PNDT (Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques) Act,’ the spokesman added.

Sex determination tests are banned under the PNDT Act to check the practice of aborting female foetuses.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/haryana-doctor-held-sex-determination-test-123053316.html

Uterus of 226 women removed in Rajasthan, probe ordered

Jaipur, Apr 16 (PTI) An RTI report has revealed that the uterus of 226 women were removed in three hospitals of Rajasthan, after which the administration has temporarily suspended their recognition and ordered a three-member inquiry committee to probe the incident.

The probe team to be led by Dausa Chief Medical and Health Officer O.P. Meena said, “We have seized the records of five hospitals and process to record statements of women and doctors is going on.”

The NGO which filed the RTI application alleges that the operations were ”unnecessary and designed for monetary benefits”.

They say that the hospitals located in Bandikui town in Dausa earned about Rs 14,000 for every case and removed the uterus of 226 out of 385 women patients who had visited the hospitals from March to September last year.

Durga Prasad, General secretary of the NGO Akhil Bhartiya Grahak Panchayat, claimed that the doctors did the surgery even when it was not necessary.

One of the women who underwent the surgery but did not wish to be identified said, “I had a constant stomach ache and they removed by uterus, but the pain did not go. Then I went to Jaipur for treatment and it was found that I was wrongly operated upon”.

Meanwhile doctors and the management of the hospitals have rejected the charges.

“We are being accused of surgically removing uterus in 90-95 per cent cases (of total operations of female patients) but the fact is that the percentage of uterus removal (hystrectomy) is about 20-25 per cent only,” Dr. Rajesh Dhakad, owner of Madhur hospital, told PTI.

He further said, “The NGO is misrepresenting the figures and creating confusion.”

Dr. Sunil Katta, owner of Katta hospital said that that uterus were removed only in the cases where it was necessary.

Another surgeon and owner of Balaji hospital Dr. Santosh Dube said that the hospitals charged Rs. 7000-8000 in all (in each case) for the operation of uterus removal and the figure of 14,000 was also not true.

The incident comes close on the heels of the death of 17 pregnant women in Jodhpur district after being given contaminated glucose.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/uterus-226-women-removed-rajasthan-probe-ordered-20110416-064400-855.html

Survey in Delhi shows slum women prefer ration to cash transfers

NEW DELHI: A survey has shown that majority of slum women do not want cash transfers or smart cards system for procuring subsidised foodgrains under the public distribution system (PDS). They prefer a strengthened PDS that functions well, preferably run by self-help groups or cooperatives rather than owned by front-men of politicians.

“Introduction of cash transfers or smart cards is a move to restrict the number of below povertyline population in the PDS. When we were hoping for a universal PDS system under the proposed National Food Security Act, this seems like a move towards privatisation and end of the minimum support price to farmers,” representatives of the Ration Vyvastha Sudhar Abhiyan along with the Right to Food Campaign, Bhalswa Lok Shakti Manch, Jagori, Chintan, Parivartan, Association for Social Justice and Research and the Centre for Advocacy and Research said here on Thursday.

Giving the example of the Delhi government’s pilot project to introduce cash-transfer system in PDS, they said: “The plan must be halted now and here as what Delhi introduces is replicated in the country.”

Not taken into confidence

What has irked these women is that majority of the beneficiaries were not taken into confidence or informed about the drastic change that was introduced in the presence of the United Nations Development Programme officials (as conveyed through an RTI application). “We are told that SEWA-Bharat [Self-employed Women's Association] conducted a survey amongst 150 PDS beneficiaries in a colony in west Delhi for the Delhi government and said they were okay with cash transfers.”

Addressing a press conference here, they said: “We decided to do a larger survey in 14 areas of Delhi, amongst nearly 600 beneficiaries, and came up with the core finding that people prefer rations than cash in hand. At least this way we can eat something with chutney and do not have to buy from the market,” said Santosh.

Cancellation of ration cards

She said that already the Delhi government had cancelled 1.72 lakh ration cards in 2008. “In August 2010, another 65,000 ration cards were cancelled in the name of providing new biometric cards, but that has not happened. Systematically we, the slum dwellers and rehabilitated people, who were moved away from our hutments during the Commonwealth games, are being pushed out of the system. If the systems were working well in rural India, why would we come to cities? Everybody wants a life of dignity,” she said.

Reena, a widow, said she had an Antyodaya Anna Yojna card. “When I applied for a change of the name of the head of the family after my husband died last year, I found that they had cancelled my card.”

Survey

Quoting from their survey of a sample of 593 ration card holders, Bimla, Sarla and Santosh said 99 per cent women wanted “rations, not cash” in their hands as they feared that cash would get spent on priority or an immediate need of the moment, be it for a health emergency or a celebration, if not on liquor etc. The survey was carried out in 14 areas of East, South, North-East and North-West Delhi.

Deepa Sinha, a member of the Right to Food Campaign, pointed out that cash transfer would not solve the problems besieging the PDS, nor ensure food security in a country where 70 per cent women suffered from anaemia and every second child was malnourished. “It will not protect the poor from inflation and will be difficult to implement in the absence of a wide network of banks in rural areas.”

Unaware of cash transfer

The survey revealed that most respondents were unaware of the cash transfer scheme. When told about it, most opposed it. About 84 per cent felt that inflation would soon reduce the value of cash and experience had shown that no revision takes place or takes place after long years, as in the revision of pension.

Also, most women said that they had no control over the manner in which money was spent in a household and more often than not, cash was spent on immediate needs, not necessarily on foodgrains. That decision was taken by a male member — be it a father, husband or a son.

http://www.hindu.com/2011/04/17/stories/2011041764571000.htm

Women using special skirts for shoplifting caught

AHMEDABAD: Two women were nabbed for stealing goods by Gujarat University police station officials on Saturday and Sunday. The women were sent to judicial custody on Tuesday. They were nabbed while trying to steal household goods from a supermarket near Vijay crossroads.

According to GU police station officials, two women had entered the supermarket chain store near Vijay crossroads on April 9. They left without making any purchase after a while. One of them was called back on the basis of suspicion and was searched thoroughly when officials got to know that she had concealed goods including tea packets, toothpaste, shampoo and bathing soaps in her skirt plaits. She was later handed over to GU police by the store management.

“The woman was identified as Anita Rathod, a resident of Sardarnagar. During her questioning, we also got to know about her accomplice Dadam Rathod and arrested her on April 10. The duo confessed that they were into stealing goods for more than two years. They had designed special skirts that can easily conceal goods without anybody’s notice. Anita told us that she had stolen ten sarees with the same skirt. The duo has been arrested twice by police,” said SJ Vaghasiya, inspector of GU police station.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/Women-using-special-skirts-for-shoplifting-caught/articleshow/7967379.cms

Hunger strike at Malkangiri jail

Malkangiri (Orissa), Apr 11 (PTI) Inmates of the local sub-jail today launched a fast-unto-death stir demanding fullfilment of their 14-point charter of demands, including those raised while releasing the abducted Malkangiri collector in February.

The agitators, led by top Maoist leader Sriramulu Srinivas, demanded withdrawal of combined security force from Orissa and release of the tribals and others arrested on the charge of supporting Maoist activities after abduction of Malkangiri district collector, R Vineel Krishna on February 14.

Though an agreement was made between the Orissa government and the mediators for a peaceful solution to the hostage crisis, none of the demands had been fulfilled so far, the agitating inmates said.

All inmates including five women were on a hunger strike and it would continue till the demands were met, the Maoist leader said.

The sub-jail houses 210 inmates including 22 Maoists.

“We are keeping a watch on the development,” SP Anirudha Singh told reporters.

http://www.ptinews.com/news/1504529_Hunger-strike-at-Malkangiri-jail

Dual career couples opting for surrogacy on rise

Career demands are apparently forcing even fertile couples to consider surrogacy as an option to have children.

While the number is still a handful, and hence not a worrisome social change, infertility experts feel the day is not far when more working couples go for surrogacy to avoid a break in their careers. Take the case of Anitha and Anil (names changed) who went for surrogacy. They now have an 18-month-old daughter. Although Anitha was capable of bearing a child, her 30-year-old businessman husband felt they could not afford to take a break from their careers. “We have a home loan and a vehicle loan to repay. We also have aged parents to take care of. The surrogacy procedure was expensive, but at least, my wife can concentrate on her career,” says Anil. Had Anita, who manages a software company, chosen to their own child, says Anil, she would have had to quit her job, and repaying loans would have been difficult considering there are always ups and downs in business. Of their own However, Anil and his 28-year-old wife are open to having a child of their own in future. Dr Ramesh of Dr Ramesh Hospital said that in the last one-and-a-half years, he had come across several fertile couples from abroad and in India wanting to have a child through surrogacy. “We usually try and persuade such couples not to go for surrogacy, as they are capable of having their own child. But when they insist, we cannot do anything. Things have now changed in our society too. One cannot say whether this is right or wrong,” he says. Bangalore Assisted Conception Centre had also received two such queries a few months ago. However, many doctors felt surrogacy was not something to be encouraged. “We have had queries from couples in the US, England and India, too. But I don’t want to take responsibility since a lot of legal and monetary issues are involved,” said Dr Sulochana Gunasheela of Gunasheela IVF Centre. More accepted Women having medical problems in conceiving are looking at India with great hope. With a surrogacy procedure in India costing five times less than in the Western countries, many foreign couples and Indians as well are going for it. Dr Ramesh says awareness and acceptance of surrogacy among Indian couples has increased in the last five years. A change observed even by Shrusti Charitable Trust, which provides and looks after women offering to become surrogates. Chandrakant, the Trust’s general manager, said that from about 10 surrogate requirements in 2003, they were conducting 25 surrogacy programmes in 2010. While 15 surrogates were carrying for foreign couples, the rest were for Indians. “The requirements from Indian couples are also increasing but the demand is more from the US and the UK,” he said. Win-win solution Women who agree to become surrogates often see it as a solution to their financial problems. It’s a win-win solution. For 26-year-old Prema (name changed), a housewife and mother of three boys, surrogacy is a way to educate her children. “We are not financially well off. I want my children to study in an English medium school at least till SSLC,” she says. Currently, Prema is seven months’ pregnant. The foreign couple for whom she is carrying, have already visited her four times, and promised to pay her Rs 2 lakh after their child’s delivery. That is besides the Rs 3,000 maintenance she has been receiving every month during pregnancy.   http://www.deccanherald.com/content/152450/dual-career-couples-opting-surrogacy.html

India’s Surrogacy Boom Awaits Legal Oversight

(WOMENSENEWS)–Chandini, 27, holds the hand of her 6-year-old daughter as she enters an in vitro fertilization center for a checkup.

“I had to change two buses to make it to here,” she says in a hushed voice, smiling as she wipes the sweat off her forehead with her cotton sari.

Chandini says she became a surrogate mother to earn money for her family.

“I want a better life for my daughters,” she says.

Her husband’s earnings as a daily wage carpenter – around $80 a month – isn’t enough to support their two daughters, so Chandini works as a housemaid and has become a surrogate. She’s been promised almost $4,500 for carrying and delivering this fetus for a Canadian couple, who couldn’t bear their own child.

“This money means a lot to me,” she says.

Hundreds of Indian women rent their wombs to earn money for their families. And the number is growing here, where commercial surrogacy is legal and there are so far no laws or governmental oversight.

Since India legalized commercial surrogacy in 2002, in vitro fertilization centers have multiplied, attracting aspiring parents from around the globe, says Sanjay Agarwal, chairman of SATYA, an advocacy organization for surrogate children’s rights.

The low cost of infertility treatment in India – nearly one-quarter of the cost in developed nations – and the modern assisted reproductive techniques available here make India a top choice for infertility treatments, according to the Indian government’s medical tourism Web site. The Confederation of Indian Industry predicts that commercial surrogacy will be a $2.3 billion industry by 2012.

Unofficial Surrogacy World Capital

Gujarat, a state in western India, has become the unofficial surrogacy capital of the world.

Dr. Nayna Patel, who became the face of the Indian surrogacy industry when Oprah Winfrey profiled her and her Gujarat clinic, Akanksha Infertility Clinic, in 2007, says the money earned from being a surrogate mother transforms lives.

In India, 42 percent of the population lives below the international poverty line of $1.25 a day, according to UNICEF.

“It’s only for our financial difficulties [that] my husband let[s] me do it,” Chandini says.

Sighing, Chandini adds that “daughters mean burden” in India, referring to the steep dowry that many families must pay their daughters’ husbands when they get married.

But Manasi Mishra, head of a surrogacy study at the New Delhi-based Centre for Social Research, says that surrogate mothers’ lives aren’t improved that much financially.

Surrogacy also raises legal concerns, says the center’s director, Ranjana Kumari, as there aren’t legal provisions to protect the surrogate mother, child or parents-to-be.

The majority of surrogate mothers dislike the way clinics treat them, according to the center’s surrogacy study. Women are often coerced into repeated inseminations if the first one fails, not allowed to meet the receiving families and paid only after relinquishing the baby to the clinic.

Kumari says commercial surrogacy also has social ramifications. Although Western cultures accept it, traditional Indian values condemn it.

“A surrogate mother can face many levels of violence, including social ostracizing,” Kumari says.

But Patel disagrees.

“All the reputed IVF clinics have been following many guidelines,” she says. “Who says that surrogate mothers are exploited?”

A Dangerous Process

SATYA’s Agarwal says health care conditions here also make it a dangerous process for women, who tend to have children of their own to care for.

“Is it ethical for a country like India, which has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the world, where a woman dies during childbirth every seven minutes, to promote and allow commercial surrogacy?” Agarwal asks.

The Indian Council of Medical Research has drafted a bill to govern surrogacy.

“The bill will take some time to become a law,” says Dr. R.S. Sharma, a member of the drafting committee.

Chandini says she doesn’t tell people — not even her children — that she’s a surrogate mother.

“Akanksha has specialized counseling programs for the to-be surrogate mother,” Patel says, to help with the social stigma and potential pain of giving up one’s baby. “They are made to meet the commissioning parents, too. And of course they are taken good care of.”

Chandini says it isn’t easy, but that she has few other options.

“It takes a heart to give away a baby you feel growing in your womb for nine months,” Chandini says. “It’s what being poor makes you do.”

http://womensenews.org/story/reproductive-health/110330/indias-surrogacy-boom-awaits-legal-oversight?page=0,1

Only 7 in Goa identify themselves as ‘other’ gender

Only seven people in Goa’s population of 14.57 lakh have come forward and identified themselves as belonging to the “other” gender, a census official said Friday.

In a first, the Census 2011 had included “other” as a third option for those who chose not to identify themselves as either male or female.

“Seven persons have identified themselves as belonging to the ‘other’ category. We, however, cannot give you a comparative decadal increase or decrease, because we did not have the category during the last census,” census director A.K. Wasnik told reporters here.

According to provisional census figures, Goa is populated by 7,40,711 men and 7,17,012 women, which takes the state’s population to 14,57,723.

“The decadal population growth in Goa is 8.17 percent,” he said.

Vasnik also said that Goa’s least populated village Codval, located in the Sattari sub-district in north Goa, has a population of five – two females and three males. The most populated village is Shiroda, 30 km from here, where the population is 14,030.

The least populated town is Pernem, 25 km from here, with a population of 5,025, while the town with the highest population is Margao with 87,678 people.

Wasnik said Goa’s population is 0.12 percent of the national figure and it ranked “third or fourth” from the bottom in the list of most populated states.

http://www.newkerala.com/news/world/fullnews-180649.html

More than 3,600 officials were engaged in the census enumeration task which was spread over two months from February and March.

Women’s share in Indian manufacturing sector unaltered

New Delhi, Mar 29 (PTI) Share of women in the total employment in the Indian manufacturing sector remained stagnant at 10.9 per cent between 2000 and 2007, according to UNIDO Report.

The apparel sector, which employed more women than men in 2000, witnessed a sharp decline even though the share of female workers in the sector remained vibrant at 41 per cent in 2007.

In the year 2000, 51.3 per cent of the total workforce in the apparel sector comprised women.

The major employers of women in manufacturing include food and beverages, leather and leather products, paper and its products, chemical and its products, communication equipment and furniture makers, according to the report of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO).

In countries like Sri Lanka and Vietnam, there are more women in the manufacturing industry than men.

In the year 2008, women comprised 57.7 per cent of the total workforce in the Sri Lankan industry whereas in Vietnam it was 58.4 per cent share.

The apparel industry was the biggest employer of women in these countries. In Sri Lanka for instance over 77 per cent of the workforce employed in apparel sector comprised women in 2008. In Vietnam it was 82.2 per cent.

Pakistan had a dismal showing when it came to employing women in manufacturing. Their share in women manufacturing sector was 3.8 per cent in 2006, according to the latest data. PTI TA PC

http://in.news.yahoo.com/womens-share-indian-manufacturing-sect-unaltered-unido-20110329-043100-871.html

Delhi Women Protest Wave of Attacks

GHAZIABAD, India — The young lovers met at a secluded spot next to a field of wheat at the edge of this sprawling suburb of New Delhi, where the timeless India of mustard fields and bullock carts abuts the frantically rising apartment towers of the budding middle class. They went seeking solitude, but instead found themselves at the violent cusp of old India and new.

There, according to the police, five drunk young men from a nearby farming village accosted the couple last month, beating the young man and gang-raping the woman. It was the latest in a series of sexual assaults and gang rapes of women in India’s booming capital and its suburbs.

In each case there has been an explosive clash between the rapidly modernizing city and the embattled, conservative village culture upon which the capital increasingly encroaches. The victims are almost invariably young, educated working women who are enjoying freedom unknown even a decade ago.

The accused are almost always young high school dropouts from surrounding villages, where women who work outside the home are often seen as lacking in virtue and therefore deserving of harassment and even rape.

“If these girls roam around openly like this, then the boys will make mistakes,’’ the mother of two of those accused in the rape said in an interview, refusing to give her name.

It is a deeply ingrained attitude that has made New Delhi, by almost any measure, the most dangerous large city in India for women.

The rate of reported rape is nearly triple that of Mumbai, and 10 times higher than Calcutta, according to government records. A survey completed last year by the government and several women’s rights groups found that 80 percent of women had faced verbal harassment in Delhi and that almost a third had been physically harassed by men.

Nearly half the women surveyed reported being stalked, a statistic grimly illustrated on Tuesday when a student at Delhi University was shot by a man the police suspect was stalking her.

The attackers often do not see their actions as crimes, the police said, and do not expect the women they attack to report them. “They have no doubt that they will get away with it,’’ said H.G.S. Dhaliwal, a deputy police commissioner in New Delhi.

India’s economy is expected to grow 9 percent this year, and its extended boom has brought sweeping social change. The number of women in the workforce has roughly doubled in the past 15 years.

Law enforcement officials say that the rate of violent crime against women has actually dropped in Delhi in the past four years, owing to more aggressive policing efforts, measures like women-only train cars and laws that require companies that employ women on late shifts to chauffeur them home.

“There is a lot of tension between the people who are traditional in their mind-set and the city that is changing so quickly,’’ said Ranjana Kumari, a leading women’s rights advocate. “Men are not used to seeing so many women in the country occupying public spaces.’’

In few places is that conflict as evident as in Ghaziabad, which sits at the eastern edge of New Delhi. The farmland where the couple met represents an invisible but indelible dividing line.

There is no question to which side the young couple belonged. The man was an engineer at a high tech company with a salary good enough to afford him a motorbike and a laptop computer.

Their attackers lived in the village of Raispur, less than a mile from the tidy complex where the young man shared an apartment with his parents, but they belong to an altogether different India. None of them managed to graduate from high school. The narrow lanes of their sleepy village are redolent of cow dung.

Unlike the growing ranks of professional women in the city, the women of Raispur live hemmed-in lives, covering their faces with shawls in front of strangers and seldom roaming beyond the village.

Seema Chowdhury, 20, the sister of one of the accused men, graduated from high school. But when she tried to enroll in college to become a teacher, her brothers refused to allow it. Young women who wander too far face many dangers, they argued.

“I wanted to do something in my life,’’ she said. “But they thought it was not a good idea.’’

In comparison, the woman who was raped here had unimaginable freedom. She had a job as an accountant and her own cellphone and e-mail account. Using those, she carried on a secret romance with a man she met online despite the fact that her parents had arranged for her to be married to someone else, according to the police.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2011/03/27/attacks_on_women_show_tensions_between_old_and_new_india/?page=2

Rural women of Uttar Pradesh assert themselves

From taking on corrupt officials to striving for greater rights for themselves, a women’s convention in this Uttar Pradesh town unfolded bold narrations of success stories of rural women, who dared to speak out.

The two-day ‘Empowering Rural Women’ programme, that begun here Thursday, saw over 400 women leaders from 10 districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh came together to share their experiences and ideas.

Over 40,000 women from backward communities in this area have formed collectives in 253 gram panchayats (village councils) called Nari Sangh and are working towards claiming their entitlements with the emphasis on right to food and right to work. They are also demanding their rights in the political and social space.

Explaining how these women’s collectives were formed, Badka Devi, who heads the Nyay Nari Sangh of Salahipur village of Pratapgarh district, said: ‘The pradhan (headman) of the village was providing neither job cards nor jobs to the women. So, a group of 200 women from our village formed an organisation to demand our rights. We also warned the pradhan to step down if he failed to deliver.’

Bhanumati of Chaluha Nari Sangh from Mihi-Purva village in Baharich district said: ‘The local public distribution system (PDS) shop owner was a big cheat, but our Nari Sangh (women’s union) has compelled him to mend his ways.’

Talking about the achievement of the collective power of women in her village, Pushpa Devi of Ambedkar Nari Sangh from Babedi area in Ghazipur said: ‘We were not getting timely payments due under the rural employment guarantee scheme. So, the women of Nari Sangh staged a sit-in at the block development office, following which timely payments were ensured.’

There were several other success stories of women from different villages of eastern Uttar Pradesh, who have got out of their shell and dared to raise their voice against male domination and domestic violence.

Pooja, president of block level Naari Manch with 5,000 women members, spoke about how they had succeeded in advocating the rights of women and had raised their voice against corruption with the help of RTI (right to information).

http://www.calcuttanews.net/story/760229/ht/Rural-women-of-Uttar-Pradesh-assert-themselves

Young Bengaluru bride dumped for dowry, returns home

A 21-year-old Bengaluru bride, who came to the UAE in July last year, has been forced to return to her home, being dumped by her husband and his family for failing to meet a dowry demand.

 

 

 

Sufina Kaval, a medical health inspector from Bengaluru, said she got married to her husband who worked as a sales executive in Dubai at a grand ceremony in her hometown on April 13, 2010.

But when she arrived in the UAE three months later, the Gulf News quoted her as alleging that her husband constantly harassed and even physically tortured her for dowry, before forcing her to give him a divorce.

“To date, we have spent Rs.3, 500, 000 (Dh285, 000 approximately),” claimed Kaval.

Showing a copy of a letter she wrote to the Consul (Labour and Welfare) at the Indian Consulate, she alleged that her husband was having an affair with another girl and “tortured” her for “dowry” whenever she confronted him about it.

“He kept me locked inside the house without a phone,” she alleged.

“He did not provide me medical help. When I became ill, I took medicines on my own. He took this as an attempt by me to commit suicide and filed for divorce in Dubai Courts,” she alleged, adding, “I was compelled to sign an Arabic paper whose contents I did not understand.”

She said after the divorce, her husband threw her out of his apartment in Sharjah.

“I had nowhere to go. The neighbours came to my rescue,” she said, noting that her parents had also flown in to take her back to India.

“If it had not been for a few friends, including the Indian Association Sharjah and the Indian Consulate, I do not know what would have happened,” she said.

A.K. Bhardwaj, Consul (Consular) of the Indian Consulate, said, “The passport and other belongings of Sufina Kaval were under the custody of her divorced husband. The consulate intervened in the matter and her husband was called to the consulate and asked to hand over her passport and other belongings.”

The consulate also provided Kaval shelter for one night, he said, adding she left for India on March 13.

Kaval said she has now been advised to file a case of dowry harassment against her husband in the Indian courts.

“No woman should suffer the way I did,” she said.

http://ludmilap.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.php?post_type=post