Elimination of violence against women

The 25th of November has been designated by the UN as the International day for the elimination of violence against women and this year in 2013, there is going to be a 16 day long campaign to end the violence against women. You may have noticed the newspaper advertisements of famous football and cricket players of Nepal pledging their support against women violence. The advertisements go as far as to say that their goals represent the voice against women violence. Of course this is a good initiative and seeing the allegiance of such famous players towards this noble cause and this might encourage some women to actually feel hopeful. But it is highly improbable that the public awareness, the banners and posters, the special MaHa serial about this cause and this fortnight campaign is enough to end or even minimize this violence.

There are many different behaviors that classify under women violence, like rape, sexual assaults, sexual harassment, female infanticide, domestic violence and basically all types of physical abuse; all of which are pertinent to our country. It is needless to say how unsafe a time it is for women in our country. For those who were not already aware of this, the numerous rape and sexual assault incidents that came to light through the national dailies immediately following the well publicized robbing and rape case of Sita Rai last year, must have done the trick. Even then only about three in five rape cases made the news, the rest remained unheard. This fad of reporting occurred rape cases lasted for a couple of months, along with the famous 'Occupy Baluatar' movement. At that time protests and rallies were held, women empowerment and the end of women violence slogans were sung. The media then moved on to replace women violence with another sensational topic. As the sexual violence cases frequented less often in the newspaper, the public seemed to be lose interest. Now with the observance of international day against women violence once more the awareness is raised and public interest kindled. I do not want to sound like a complete pessimist, but I think it is a little too late to try to stop woman violence only through public awareness.

We have, it seems, learnt to tolerate eve teasing. Boys passing comment to just about any girls they see is apparently no longer considered a big issue. I think this may have something to do with guardians training their daughters about how to handle this from a young age. My grandmother taught me three golden rules about dealing with eve teasing; do not make eye contact, pretend you did not listen and never ever talk back. I did follow this rule for as long as I can remember. After all, what else can I do? I wonder if she would have taught my younger brother not to tease girls if she was still alive. I think not, for if guardians had taught their sons not to tease girls, they would not have to teach their daughters how to deal with teasing. This makes me wonder if we have to learn to live with domestic abuse and sexual assaults as we have learnt to live with eve teasing. Cases of spousal abuse, sexual harassments, and dowry related assaults are stilled frowned upon but not considered that unusual. While we used to blame lack of education for women violence, we have now come to know that even educated people can be abusers. We cannot even blame lack of public awareness as abuses occur even in the urban cities.

Of course just teasing cannot be associated with women violence but it does lead to majority of men treating women as objects and it does develop sexist attitude in them. If they get away with teasing women and they get away with touching women inappropriately in crowded streets and public vehicles and they may think they can get away with more serious forms of violence. It would have been easier to nip thing in the bud but now it is difficult to imagine things ever getting normal.

No matter how many laws are made to safeguard the rights of women and no matter how you try to raise the level of awareness, women violence cannot be stopped until and unless women get the respect they deserve and getting men to respect women is not something you can achieve through campaigns. It is next to impossible to teach abusers to respect women. What can be done is to try and improve the future generation and make and follow strict laws against the wrong-doers. Of course if each and every individual truly believes in this cause then women violence can end right here and right now.