IT'S ALL ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU GIVE

TINA'S STORY  I was in my late twenties when I met my ex at the church I attended. We married a year later. He slapped me across the face one time when we were engaged as he didn’t like the meal that I cooked. I was dumbfounded but accepted his apologies and excuse of having had a hard day at work. The abuse started a week after we were married and escalated very quickly. Six months into the marriage I asked him for a divorce. He said that if I divorced him he would kill me and kill my parents. I confided in the minister of the church as to what was going on. The minister tried counselling us, but my husband was telling the priest one thing and doing another. I earned more than him and had to cover all the household expenses. He would also make demands for money from me. If I said no to sex he would force himself on me. He would give me 15 minutes to get home from work. If I were later he would accuse me of being unfaithful. One time I was late, and an argument br...

 NEHA'S STORY  My partner has been physically and emotionally abusing me for about twelve months. It’s started with pushing and shoving and taking my keys when I wanted to leave. He was very insecure about past relationships and jealous of people he thought were a threat. We would have evenings where he’d been drinking and start accusing me of being a ‘whore’ amongst other names. It would go on for hours until he would fall asleep. The next day it was always the same, he was sorry and he didn’t know why he said it and did the things he did. I believed him at first but after the third time I knew it was a mistake and I had to get out. The final straw was the worst behavior, hours of verbal abuse and name calling and then he became violent when I tried to call someone. That night it dawned on me things will never change. I had to put myself first and do what was right for me. How could I let myself be hurt this way? How I coped I believed he wanted to change....

POONAM'S STORY  I lived in a violent marriage for years. I was very naive at first and really didn't know people like him existed. He would kick me, slap me, push me, trip me over, throw things at me, stand on my feet, yell abuse, call me names like ‘social cripple’, the list goes on and on, but he never punched me. In fact he would say to people that he could'nt stand ‘wife bashers’. He would tell me that he didn’t want the children to play with so and so children because they were a bad influence. He tried to isolate us from all those who loved us and new people we met would go through character assasinations by him. Life was continous hell, fear and horror and he always blamed the children or me for his violence. Things got a lot worse towards the end. He would threaten to run us all off the road in the car and kill us. The violence became a daily occurance if not several episodes a day. How I coped Basically i coped by trying to keep him happy so he...

      RICHA'S STORY  My journey to hell and back began twelve years ago. I met him when he moved in next door to me. We became friends and later he moved in with me and we became an item. He had me hook, line and sinker, a real charmer. He was a rebel, and life became fast and exciting. Parties, dancing, drinking and then more drinking. I didn’t see it coming. We out with some of his mates and he had been drinking all day, and then his old girlfriend arrived. I was upset because he sat on her knee and kissed her, so I went to sit in the car. He came bellowing over, so I locked the door. He put his fist through the passenger window then dragged me through it. After receiving a punch in the head, one of his friends drove me home. At home I tended to my sore head, scrapes and bruises, but what hurt most was that it happened at all. The next day when he arrived at the flat he was full of remorse – things would be different, he wouldn’t drink and he would never hur...

TRUE STORIES: TAKE THE LESSONS SHIKHA'S STORY I had been seeing this guy for just over three months. We both drank a lot. One night, he got really mad at me and he called me a lot of names, and then pushed me against the wall. I got really scared but he said he was sorry and he’d never do it again. Another night, he wanted to make love and I asked him to put on a condom. He said he didn’t have one. I asked him to stop, and he wouldn’t. And he said that it didn’t matter, not to worry about it. At first, I sort of laughed cause i thought he was joking, but then I realized he was serious and I got scared. I told him to stop but he wouldn’t, and I pushed him away but he pushed me back and pinned me down with his body. He was very strong. He raped me. How I coped I had been abused as a child, and I had told him about it. I was very depressed already, and I had been cutting myself. Things got really bad after the rape. I tried to kill myself. I think I just wante...

                                                  For the women with purpose and motive VIOLENCE AND ALL Violence against women is a manifestation of unequal power relation between male and female leading to discrimination against women by men and to the prevention of the full-advancement of women [ 1 ]. The intentional use of physical force, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or a group or community, either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, mal-development or deprivation [ 2 ]. Violence against women is a global issue. Women are neglected, trapped within cultural framework, molded by dogmatic thoughts of the patriarchal system. As a result, violence against women is viewed as a normal phenomenon in the light of male attitudes. Still now, women, in Bangladesh, suffer from violence,...

Although the scheme is working way hard to reach its motive but the infrastructure needs to be improved of all the rescue rooms provided to the women.

                         STRUGGLES: HIDDEN AND VISIBLE The real challenges lie in operationalising these crisis centers, staffing these centers and training personnel deputed in these centers. It was felt that detail operational guidelines must be laid down, staff recruited and trained adequately not only in skill but also perspective and attitudes before they are assigned to run these centers. These centers should not be restricted only to district headquarters and cities but to panchayats as well. Accountability mechanisms and punishment for lapses must be clearly fixed before the centers start operating. Further, centers must be equipped to provide shelter to the survivors.  The role envisaged for OSC's are one of primarily providing in the first instance medical examination and lodging FIR and later on also supporting the survivors with trauma counseling and fighting the judicial battle for justice and convi...

One Stop Crisis Centre – a step forward in this campaign against gender based violence The popular TV show Satyamev Jayate, in its first episode titled Fighting Rape, screened on the 2nd of March 2014, has once again brought public’s attention back on the issue of violence against women and girls.  In this show, various aspects of gender based violence were talked about and the speakers critically looked at the existing response mechanisms available to the survivor.  Of the many things that the speakers had put forth on the show, the mention of One Stop Crisis Centre (OSCC), which went to the government as part of Justice Usha Mehra Commission’s report in the aftermath of Nirbhaya incident, was also widely discussed .  This centre, accoarding to the report, must offer free medical, legal and case related support to the survivor at one place, rather than her having to run between each of these institutions separately. In February 2013, a report that appeared...

Extensions The scheme ONE STOP CENTRE is the one I am focusing on among the various government’s schemes. Here’s a brief about the following. Introduction o     This Scheme of One Stop Centre for Women is implemented since 1st April 2015 with total project cost of Rs.18.58 is funded under Nirbhaya fund.  o     In the first phase, one OSC was to be established in all states/UT and was approved from 36 locations out of which only 33 got sanctioned and only 15 became operational till 30th Ma, 2016.  o     The scheme has already been revised for setting up One Stop Centre in 150 additional locations in second phase, in addition to the already proposed 36 centres in first phase.  o     The government has now proposed for establishing 660 centres. One Stop Centre Scheme o     One Stop Centre’s (OSC) are centres established by the Government of India through the Ministry of Women and C...

                                                                                      Government’s Call In my last blog, I talked about the safety issues of women. Now, In this blog I am going to discuss about the steps government has taken for the same purpose. There are number of schemes led by the government of India for the safety of women. Few proved out to be great success but few has not even been properly implemented.  Today, even after the 71 st Independence of the country, our women needs to be protected by schemes like these. Although, My concern through this blog is ...

DUMB WOMEN’S Long way has to be travelled. A very, very long. But to travel, We need to know how to run. And even before that, We need to know how to walk. I will explain these lines later. Before that, I would like to ask, to everyone, Concerned to women and their safety. How do we assure the safety of women? Ummm, All right! Let’s list out the actions we should take in order to make sure that there’s enough secure world waiting out there for all we ladies. Number 1-   Wear full clothes. Number 2- Don’t roam on streets after 7. Number 3- Walk with your eyes down. Number 4- Don’t make male friends.     Etc etc. Convincing enough? Well, I am a 20 year old Journalism student, Grown up in the liberal-est Family, having a father and brothers no less than gems, Allhamdollilah. But wait, In the beautiful process of growing up what led me to think about something like this? How this urge evolved in someone like me to talk about such sensitive issue? ...