Women Apathy: False promises

Apathy in women: Apathy is a state of either the absence or suppression of passion, excitement or emotion. It is also the lack of interest in things that others find exciting. Apathy can be the result of boredom. Denying or covering up who you really are and editing and expressing yourself according to who you think others want you to be can also be at the root of apathy. Having a taskmaster attitude toward your own self is almost guaranteed to result in apathetic feelings. Women have always been ill-treated and have embedded themselves into the roots of apathy. The counties all over the world, be they of World I or world III category, all are sailing in the same boat. They talk of Women empowerment and women upliftment, but it is seen that no one is different from the other for the status of women in developed countries is no different from that of developing countries. Following are a few reasons that can help us to explore and resolve the root cause of apathy in women.

1)    Atrocities on women in 21^st century

2)    Women abduction, Woman Trafficking & Honour Killing etc.

3)    Sexual abuse, Rape, Work harassment & Tools for black mailing

4)    Efforts done by govt., an efficiency or farce & Work done by UN and other international bodies lacking incentives

1.   Atrocities on Women in 21^st century

“Let every day be Women's Day as far as their dignity, respect and safety is concerned.”

Centuries have come, and centuries have gone, but the plight of women is not likely to change. Time has helplessly watched women suffering in the form of discrimination, oppression, exploitation, degradation, aggression, humiliation. Women are physically weak and in a male dominated society they are harassed by them in every manner. 

Violence against women and girls is the most pervasive human rights violation in the world today. Opening the door on the subject of violence against the world's females is like standing at the threshold of an immense dark chamber vibrating with collective anguish, but with the sounds of protest throttled back to a murmur. Where there should be outrage aimed at an intolerable status quo there is denial instead, and the largely passive acceptance of ‘the way things are.' 

In recent times, crimes against women has been on a rapid increase. In recent years, there has been an alarming rise in atrocities against women in many parts of the world. Not a day passes by when we don't hear or see a screaming news headline about yet another case of rape, molestation, harassment, murder, female infanticide, dowry death or many more. It seems like we are moving backwards instead of moving forward. While most of the countries makes tall claims of progress towards being a vibrant, modern, democratic, secular promising equal rights to all its citizens without any bias or discrimination etc., there, women seem to be losing their rights to enjoy these. Is this what we should expect from the world around us? Is this our concept of an ideal nation? Is this our interpretation of freedom? This Facebook pages is not intended to change the world. All we seek to do is spread awareness and unite the people of each and every nation to take a stand against the ill treatment of women in their prospective countries. If we need a cause to put aside our differences and diversity for, this surely is one... because this affects the very soul of our planet. So instead of being a proud human being of God... let us display our pride by doing the right thing and behaving in a manner that reflects the modesty and moral  values of each and every individual woman.

   Male violence against women is a worldwide phenomenon. Although not every woman has experienced it, and many expect not to, yet fear of violence is an important factor in the lives of most women. It determines what they do, when they do it, where they do it, and with whom. Fear of violence is a cause of women's lack of participation in activities beyond the home, as well as inside it. Within the home, women and girls may be subjected to physical and sexual abuse as punishment or as culturally justified assaults. These acts shape their attitude to life, and their expectations of themselves. Violence against women both inside and outside of their home has been a crucial issue in the contemporary Indian society. Women in India constitute near about half of its population and most of them are grinding under the socio-cultural and religious structures. One gender has been controlling the space of the India's social economic, political and religious fabric since time immemorial.

    India has always emerged as an irony that worships most number of Goddesses as a part of its pantheon and still treats women as second class citizens. Another irony is that our ancestors were perhaps more progressive when it came to gender equality, providing a safe and secure environment to women. In India alone, every twenty six minutes a woman is molested, every thirty four minutes a rape takes place, every forty two minutes a sexual harassment incident occurs, every forty three minutes a woman is kidnapped and every ninety three minutes a woman is burnt to death over dowry. More over one-quarter of the reported rapes involve girls under the age of sixteen but there are also a vast majority cases that are never reported. Although the penalties are severe but convictions are rare

There are various forms of crime against women. Sometimes, it begins even before their birth, sometimes in the adulthood and other phrases of life. In the Indian society, the position of women is always perceived in relation to the man, from birth onward and at every stage of life, she is dependent on him. This perception has given birth to various social customs and practices. One important manifestation of these customs and practices has been that of Sati. It is seen as a pinnacle of achievement for a woman. This custom of self-immolation of the widow on her husband's pyre was an age-old practice in some parts of the country, which received deification. The popular belief ran that the goddess enters into the body of the woman who resolves to become a sati. The practice of sati has been abolished by law in the early decades of nineteenth century.

  Violence against women can include violence carried out by ‘individuals’ as well as ‘states’ in forms rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment, coercive use of contraceptives; female infanticide, prenatal sex selection, obstetric violence and mob violence as well as harmful   customary or traditional practices such as honor killings, dowry violence female genital mutilation, child marriages, marriage by abduction,  forced marriage, sexual violence, and sexual slavery during conflict; forced sterilization, forced abortion, violence by the police and authoritative personnel; stoning and flogging etc.  Many forms of violence against women, such as trafficking and forced prostitution are often perpetrated by organized criminal networks.

   Atrocities on women are not happenings in isolation, but is a part of a much broader and serious social disease that plagues the environment. Police and other law enforcement agencies need to be far more active and alert but the long term cure for this disease lies in education and sensitization of males. Even as the whole world appears to be united in its support for the hapless victim, countless crimes against women continue unabated across the universe. And these are crimes that are taking place not just in buses or clubs or trains. They are also taking place inside homes, schools and work places... places where one is supposed to feel "safest" and "protected". Moreover, these crimes are not always committed by demented bus drivers or drunk street hooligans. Reports of fathers, brothers, uncles, husbands torturing, raping and exploiting female members of their families appear in the news daily. The police can do nothing in such cases before it's already too late. The problem has to be addressed more broadly and along with stringent laws and swift justice, our education system needs to incorporate elements that imbibe in men the sense of respect for women. Till the time we can do this, no matter what the laws or how many policemen we deploy around, women will continue to live in an environment of fear.

In fact, women are very often made the targets of attack for pleasure or fun or comfort or making of money or avoiding unnecessary burden right from the stage of embryo before birth till their old age. Before going to discuss on what could be the reasons and who are responsible for inflicting torture on women, it may not be out of place to take an account of different nature of atrocities and humiliations being done to women at various stages of their lives as the reports, very often, come to our notice through media.

      I.        Pregnant women are either persuaded or forced to undergo abortion if the babies in the womb are detected to be females through sonography, only to avoid bringing up of girl children and bear huge expenses for their marriage.

    II.        New born female children are brutally killed by parents or other members of the family and thrown as wastes if they could not be aborted before birth not only for rearing burdensome creatures but also for satisfying their caustic desire for having only the male children who will be the future bread earners and shall be the heirs to advance their family for future generations,.

   III.        Girl children in several parts of the country are not allowed to go to school for study and they are engaged in household or field work. In many cases they are engaged as maid servants for earning money for the family or sold out as bonded labour to rich people.

  IV.        Girl children are abducted and sold to the brokers for trading in the whore market.

   V.        School and college going girls are very often subjected to eave teasing, kidnapping, rape and murder.

  VI.        In many families daughters are not given equal treatment in upbringing as given to their sons.

 VII.        Forceful child marriage of girl child and forgetting about her fate in father-in-law’s house is still existent in some parts of our country.

VIII.        If the marriage of a girl after attaining right age is arranged one, her misery follows when her parents fail to satisfy the demands of groom and his parents. All her visionary projects for building a lovely home get crushed and mingled with the dust as soon as she steps into her father-in-law’s house. She is treated like a football and is subjected to painful humiliations and inhuman torture for dowry day in and day out. How helpless and destitute she feels in her father-in-law’s house where everybody including her husband go on torturing her mentally as well as physically until their dowry demands are not fulfilled? In many cases, the helpless poor girl either commits suicide or she is most cruelly murdered.

  IX.        If a woman is divorced or estranged by the husband for any reason after marriage, her misery crosses all limits by making her life extremely unbearable. Not only her neighbors, friends, relatives but also her parents in many cases never hesitate to cast slur on her and treat her as if an unwanted entity in the family/society.

   X.        If a woman is raped or kidnapped and then released, her living in the society becomes awful and everyone looks down upon her as if she has committed a grievous sin willfully.

  XI.        Working women, in most cases are subjected to sexual harassment at their respective working places and outside.

 XII.        In nucleus families (Families comprising husband, wife and children only which are commonly seen these days) mostly the dominance of husbands is supreme where wives are not earning members and poor wives have no freedom to act according to their wishes. In cases, even if the wives are earning members, the husbands hardly share the responsibility of managing the family and rearing of children. The wives are compelled to manage all household works including cooking of food even if their earning is equal to or more than their husbands. In most of the cases wives have to compromise for a peaceful family life and their dedication for the family is considered as an obligation to making an ideal family either as wives or as mothers.

XIII.        Most widows in old age are an abandoned lot in spite of having their well-placed sons simply because their daughters-in-law can’t bear their presence at home and it is because of widowhood, that, the quality of life they live is lowered. Various studies indicate that even (i) legal rights of widows are violated, (ii) they suffer forceful social isolation (iii) they have limited freedom to re marry (iv) restrictive employment opportunities for widows, (v) most widows get very little economic support from their family or from the community.

Although the nature of atrocities on females as listed above is not conclusive, it is enough to indicate clearly the motive behind all these infamous deeds. Those may be:

 (1) Fanatical belief of man of having a male child instead of a girl child.

 (2) Insatiable greed for dowry and passion for   leading a comfortable or luxurious life by utilizing women as the key gadgets to extract easy money from her parents.

(3) Jealousy and hatred

(4) Satisfaction of one’s sexual appetite growing out of passion for having illegal sex and infatuation.

(5) Utilizing women as precious commodity to breed money.

(6) The last but not the least is the upholding the false pride of male dominance by males themselves on the strength of their masculine power.

  Our heads hang in shame and sorrow if this is to be a turning point for our society and our thoughts? Should there  be no real and effective transformations in our law enforcement mechanism? Or will the passage of time yet again make us forget? The choice is for us to make. Will we continue to remain apathetic to the ills that plague our social and psychological fabric or will we take concrete measures to evolve into a truly civilized nation?

  Woman of twenty first century is a true portrait of courage that can inspire millions around the world to stop accepting things the way they are to make an enormous difference especially in countries like India, Nepal, Nigeria etc. and give hope to those who can muster the strength to change their own lives. What we actually need is a mechanism of exemplary punishment that drives the sense of mortal fear into those who even contemplate such heinous crimes against women and children and people around... just don't stand and watch such crimes being carried out... instead step in and protect the victims…for tomorrow, it may be you, or a member of your family, or a friend.

  How can we make this planet a safe place for women? Bringing about a significant social change is rather very difficult, but we like to believe that there has always to be a start in order to achieve positive results as this will be a prolonged fight. Personal safety is not something that only women should be concerned about, but how can we spread greater awareness so that men understand that respecting women would make them more of a man than disrespecting them?

Most of the countries boast of their progress, but the position of women there is nothing to be proud of. This issue should be treated as a failure not of the laws of the country but of every individual, including the medical fraternity also. It is believed that the responsibility to improve the situation lies not only on the shoulders of the authorities and social organization but also on the ordinary people, especially men. 

The World Health Organisation (WHO), in its research on violence against women, categorized it as occurring through five stages of the life cycle: “1) pre-birth, 2) infancy, 3) girlhood, 4) adolescence and adulthood and 5) elderly.”

 In recent years, there has been a trend of approaching violence against women at an international level, through instruments such as conventions; or, in the European Union, through directives such as the directive against sexual harassment , and the directive against human trafficking.

The UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women states that "violence against women is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women" and that "violence against women is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men".

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TO BE CONTINUED………

                                                                                   2.) Women Abduction & Woman Trafficking