Cable TV Empowers Women in India and Pakistan?
Freakonomics is a series of books by authors Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner who find data points, patterns, correlations and trends that are often missed by mainstream economists and researchers. For example, the authors see how legalization of abortion may have caused significant crime rates decline in the United States in recent decades. They argue with various statistics to reject other possible explanations like gun control, strong economy, three-strikes laws etc. Authors say that the termination of unwanted pregnancies has led to fewer criminals on the streets of America.
In their latest book of the Freakonomics series, Superfreakonomics, the authors cite the findings of two American economists Robert Jensen and Emily Oster that cable TV in 2700 households empowered Indian women to be more autonomous. Cable TV households had lower birthrates, less domestic abuse and kept more girls in school. Here are some highlights from the book about India:
1. If women could choose their birthplace, India might not be a wise choice of a place for any of them to be born.
2. In spite of recent economic success and euphoria about India, the people of India remain excruciatingly poor.
3. Literacy is low, and corruption is high in India.
4. Only half the Indian households have electricity, and fewer have running water.
5. Only one in 4 Indian homes has a toilet.
6. 40% of families with girls want to have more children, but families with boys do not want a baby girl.
7. It's especially unlucky to be born female, baby boy is like a 401 K retirement plan, baby girl requires a dowry fund.
8. Smile Train in Chennai did cleft repair surgery at no cost for poor children. A man was asked how many children he had. He said he had 1, a boy. It turned out that he also had 5 daughters which he did not mention.
9. Indian midwives in Tamil Nadu are paid $2.50 to kill girls with cleft deformity.
10. Girls are highly undervalued, there are 35 million fewer females than males, presumed dead, killed by midwife or parent or starved to death. Unltrasound are used mainly to find and destroy female fetuses. Ultrasound and abortion are available even in the smallest villages with no electricity or clean water.
11. If lucky enough not to be aborted, girls face inequality and cruelty at every turn because of low social status of Indian women.
12. 51% of Indian men say wife beating is justified, 54% women agree, especially when dinner is burned or they leave home without husband's permission.
13. High number of unwanted pregnancies, STDs, HIV infections happen to Indian women when 15% of the condoms fail. Indian Council of Medical Research found that 60% of Indian men's genitalia are too small to fit the condoms manufactured to international standard sizes.
14. Indian laws to protect women are widely ignored. The government has tried monetary rewards to keep baby girls and supported microfinance for women. NGO programs, smaller condoms, and other projects have had limited success.
15. People had little interest in State run TV channel due to poor reception or boring programs. But cable television has helped women, as 150 million people between 2001-2006 got cable TV which gave them exposure to wider world.
16. American economists found that the effect of TV in 2700 households empowered women to be more autonomous. Cable TV households had lower birthrates, less domestic abuse and kept daughters in schools.
Freakonomics series authors Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner use the above facts to prove what they call the "Law of Unintended Consequences".
They argue that access to cable TV, not originally intended to help liberate women, has done more to improve the lives of Indian women than the many laws and government programs designed to help them.
Cable television is present in over 16 million Pakistani households accounting for 68% of the population in 2009. I am not aware of any studies done on the impact of cable TV on rural women in Pakistan, but my guess is that trends similar to India's are empowering women in Pakistan's rural households with growing cable TV access.
Related Links:
Media Boom in Pakistan
Gender Inequality Worst in South Asia
Grinding Poverty in Resurgent India
Women's Status in Pakistan
WEF Global Gender Gap Rankings 2009
India, Pakistan Contrasted 2010
Female Literacy Through Mobile Phones
Pakistan's Woman Speaker: Another Token or Real Change
Female Literacy Lags Far Behind in India and Pakistan
Female Genocide Unfolding in India
In their latest book of the Freakonomics series, Superfreakonomics, the authors cite the findings of two American economists Robert Jensen and Emily Oster that cable TV in 2700 households empowered Indian women to be more autonomous. Cable TV households had lower birthrates, less domestic abuse and kept more girls in school. Here are some highlights from the book about India:
1. If women could choose their birthplace, India might not be a wise choice of a place for any of them to be born.
2. In spite of recent economic success and euphoria about India, the people of India remain excruciatingly poor.
3. Literacy is low, and corruption is high in India.
4. Only half the Indian households have electricity, and fewer have running water.
5. Only one in 4 Indian homes has a toilet.
6. 40% of families with girls want to have more children, but families with boys do not want a baby girl.
7. It's especially unlucky to be born female, baby boy is like a 401 K retirement plan, baby girl requires a dowry fund.
8. Smile Train in Chennai did cleft repair surgery at no cost for poor children. A man was asked how many children he had. He said he had 1, a boy. It turned out that he also had 5 daughters which he did not mention.
9. Indian midwives in Tamil Nadu are paid $2.50 to kill girls with cleft deformity.
10. Girls are highly undervalued, there are 35 million fewer females than males, presumed dead, killed by midwife or parent or starved to death. Unltrasound are used mainly to find and destroy female fetuses. Ultrasound and abortion are available even in the smallest villages with no electricity or clean water.
11. If lucky enough not to be aborted, girls face inequality and cruelty at every turn because of low social status of Indian women.
12. 51% of Indian men say wife beating is justified, 54% women agree, especially when dinner is burned or they leave home without husband's permission.
13. High number of unwanted pregnancies, STDs, HIV infections happen to Indian women when 15% of the condoms fail. Indian Council of Medical Research found that 60% of Indian men's genitalia are too small to fit the condoms manufactured to international standard sizes.
14. Indian laws to protect women are widely ignored. The government has tried monetary rewards to keep baby girls and supported microfinance for women. NGO programs, smaller condoms, and other projects have had limited success.
15. People had little interest in State run TV channel due to poor reception or boring programs. But cable television has helped women, as 150 million people between 2001-2006 got cable TV which gave them exposure to wider world.
16. American economists found that the effect of TV in 2700 households empowered women to be more autonomous. Cable TV households had lower birthrates, less domestic abuse and kept daughters in schools.
Freakonomics series authors Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner use the above facts to prove what they call the "Law of Unintended Consequences".
They argue that access to cable TV, not originally intended to help liberate women, has done more to improve the lives of Indian women than the many laws and government programs designed to help them.
Cable television is present in over 16 million Pakistani households accounting for 68% of the population in 2009. I am not aware of any studies done on the impact of cable TV on rural women in Pakistan, but my guess is that trends similar to India's are empowering women in Pakistan's rural households with growing cable TV access.
Related Links:
Media Boom in Pakistan
Gender Inequality Worst in South Asia
Grinding Poverty in Resurgent India
Women's Status in Pakistan
WEF Global Gender Gap Rankings 2009
India, Pakistan Contrasted 2010
Female Literacy Through Mobile Phones
Pakistan's Woman Speaker: Another Token or Real Change
Female Literacy Lags Far Behind in India and Pakistan
Female Genocide Unfolding in India
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ISLAMABAD: In conjunction with several multinational firms, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) is launching the Women in Trade Initiative to increase the participation of Pakistani women in the international trade sector.
“This initiative is part of the United States’ commitment to the people of Pakistan to support women’s empowerment,” said Dr. Marilyn Wyatt, wife of US Ambassador Cameron Munter, at the launch of the Women in Trade Initiative, says a press release received here on Tuesday.
“By raising the role of women in the international trade sector, we can enable them to contribute not only to Pakistan’s economy, but to the overall development of the country.”
Under this initiative, USAID has arranged three-month internships for 17 female university graduates with well-known companies such as TARGET Sourcing Services Pakistan, TEXLYNX, NISHAT Group, and Li & Fung Pakistan.
These women will gain skills in sourcing and marketing of products, product development and diversification and supply chain management.
The international trade sector in Pakistan currently employs very few women in managerial positions.
A recent USAID-funded study has shown women comprise less than 10 percent of management and 20 percent of junior staff in trade companies.
The Women in Trade initiative will work to set up linkages between international firms and local universities so that more women have opportunities to explore careers in international trade.
The USAID-funded initiative will also help companies select the best-suited male and female university graduates for training and potential future recruitment.
http://www.brecorder.com/pakistan/business-a-economy/19935-usaid-launches-women-in-trade-initiative-in-pakistan.html
When Naz Khan became Pakistan’s first female money-market trader 19 years ago, KASB Securities, the Merrill Lynch (BAC) affiliate that had hired her, needed to build a women’s restroom in its Karachi office. By the time Khan left last year to become chief financial officer at Engro Fertilizer, KASB had so many women on staff that “we had to get in line” to use the restroom, she says.
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More of them than ever are finding employment, doing everything from pumping gasoline and serving burgers at McDonald’s (MCD) to running major corporations. About 22 percent of Pakistani females over the age of 10 now work, up from 14 percent a decade ago, government statistics show. Women now hold 78 of the 342 seats in the National Assembly, and in July, Hina Rabbani Khar, 34, became Pakistan’s first female Foreign Minister. “The cultural norms regarding women in the workplace have changed,” says Maheen Rahman, 34, chief executive officer at IGI Funds, which manages some $400 million in assets. Rahman says she plans to keep recruiting more women for her company.
Much of the progress has come because women stay in school longer. More than 42 percent of Pakistan’s 2.6 million high school students last year were girls, up from 30 percent 18 years ago. Women made up about 22 percent of the 68,000 students in Pakistani universities in 1993; today, 47 percent of Pakistan’s 1.1 million university students are women, according to the Higher Education Commission. Half of all MBA graduates hired by Habib Bank, Pakistan’s largest lender, are now women. “Parents are realizing how much better a lifestyle a family can have if girls work,” says Sima Kamil, 54, who oversees 1,400 branches as head of retail banking at Habib. “Every branch I visit has one or two girls from conservative backgrounds,” she says.
There’s still a long way to go. The employment rate for men is triple that for women, and Pakistan’s female literacy rate is just 45 percent, vs. 70 percent for men. In agriculture, where women account for three-fourths of all workers, female laborers such as cotton and chili pickers earn less than 50¢ a day. In the informal manufacturing sector—companies that make, say, blouses, bedsheets, or soccer balls—women make up 57 percent of the workforce, but they spend more hours on the job and receive lower pay than their male counterparts, according to the Pakistan Institute of Labour and Economic Research. In 2009, the agency says, women in light manufacturing earned an average of 2,912 rupees ($34) monthly, about 40 percent of the average earnings for men.
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Some companies believe hiring women gives them a competitive advantage. Habib Bank says adding female tellers has helped improve customer service at the formerly state-owned lender because the men on staff don’t want to appear rude in front of women. And makers of household products say female staffers help them better understand the needs of their customers. “The buyers for almost all our product ranges are women,” says Fariyha Subhani, 46, CEO of Unilever Pakistan Foods, where 106 of the 872 employees are women. “Having women selling those products makes sense because they themselves are the consumers,” she says.
To attract more women, Unilever last year offered some employees the option to work from home, and the company has run an on-site day-care center since 2003. Engro, which has 100 women in management positions, last year introduced flexible working hours, a day-care center, and a support group where female employees can discuss challenges they encounter. “Today there is more of a focus at companies on diversity,” says Engro Fertilizer CFO Khan, 42. The next step, she says, is ensuring that “more women can reach senior management levels.”
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/now-on-the-job-in-pakistan-women-09082011.html
1. India Tribune:
New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among India’s major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, according to police figures.
•South Africa – It has one of the highest rates, with 277,000 reported cases. The same year a survey by the Medical Research Council found that one in four men admitted to raping someone.
•United States – More than 89,241 rape cases were reported. Criminals face life behind bars, and in some states, castration is an option.
•India – Reported a little more than 21,397 cases.
•United Kingdom – 15,084 cases were reported. A suspect found guilty, faces a maximum conviction of life in prison.
•Mexico – Nearly 14,078 cases were reported. In some parts of the country, penalties may consist of a few hours in jail, or minor fines.
•Germany – Counts the highest number of reported rape cases in Europe, just under 8,000.
•Russia – Almost 5,000 cases were reported, and the crime holds a punishment of 4-10 years in jail.
http://www.indiatribune.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10195:rape-statistics-around-the-world-&catid=107:coverpage&Itemid=471
2. Express Tribune:
Violence against women makes up 95 per cent of cases of violence reported in Pakistan. These statistics are even more chilling, bearing in mind that 70 per cent of cases of violence against women do not get registered. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan estimates that a rape occurs in Pakistan every two hours and a gang rape every eight hours.
Aurat Foundation’s report titled Situation of Violence against Women in Pakistan 2010 discloses that Punjab dominates with 2,690 registered cases out of a total of 4,069 incidents in various parts of Pakistan.
Interior Ministry documents placed before the National Assembly in 2008 revealed that a staggering 7,546 women were raped in a mere 24-month span between 2007-2009, a rate of 314 rapes every month.
According to War Against Rape, data released by 103 police stations in Karachi show an eight per cent rise in registered cases and seven per cent more medico-legal examinations in 2010 from 2009.
Since courts do not place restraining orders on all the accused released on bail, they often continue to harass the survivors. Whither justice when 31 per cent of cases reported against a family member have resulted in the family shifting away from their home, and removing themselves from the legal system to avoid social persecution?
http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/4479/why-the-deafening-silence-after-rape/
I LIVED for 24 years in New Delhi, a city where sexual harassment is as regular as mealtime. Every day, somewhere in the city, it crosses the line into rape.
As a teenager, I learned to protect myself. I never stood alone if I could help it, and I walked quickly, crossing my arms over my chest, refusing to make eye contact or smile. I cleaved through crowds shoulder-first, and avoided leaving the house after dark except in a private car. At an age when young women elsewhere were experimenting with daring new looks, I wore clothes that were two sizes too large. I still cannot dress attractively without feeling that I am endangering myself.
Things didn’t change when I became an adult. Pepper spray wasn’t available, and my friends, all of them middle- or upper-middle-class like me, carried safety pins or other makeshift weapons to and from their universities and jobs. One carried a knife, and insisted I do the same. I refused; some days I was so full of anger I would have used it — or, worse, had it used on me.
The steady thrum of whistles, catcalls, hisses, sexual innuendos and open threats continued. Packs of men dawdled on the street, and singing Hindi film songs, rich with double entendres, was how they communicated. To make their demands clear, they would thrust their pelvises at female passers-by.
If only it was just public spaces that were unsafe. In my office at a prominent newsmagazine, at the doctor’s office, even at a house party — I couldn’t escape the intimidation.
On Dec. 16, as the world now knows, a 23-year-old woman and a male friend were returning home after watching the movie “Life of Pi” at a mall in southwest Delhi. After they boarded what seemed to be a passenger bus, the six men inside gang-raped and tortured the woman so brutally that her intestines were destroyed. The bus service had been a ruse. The attackers also severely beat up the woman’s friend and threw them from the vehicle, leaving her to die.
The young woman didn’t oblige. She had started that evening watching a film about a survivor, and must have been determined to survive herself. Then she produced another miracle. In Delhi, a city habituated to the debasement of women, tens of thousands of people took to the streets and faced down police officers, tear gas and water cannons to express their outrage. It was the most vocal protest against sexual assault and rape in India to date, and it set off nationwide demonstrations.
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The volume of protests in public and in the media has made clear that the attack was a turning point. The unspeakable truth is that the young woman attacked on Dec. 16 was more fortunate than many rape victims. She was among the very few to receive anything close to justice. She was hospitalized, her statement was recorded and within days all six of the suspected rapists were caught and, now, charged with murder. Such efficiency is unheard-of in India.
In retrospect it wasn’t the brutality of the attack on the young woman that made her tragedy unusual; it was that an attack had, at last, elicited a response.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/opinion/the-unspeakable-truth-about-rape-in-india.html
A five year old girl who was raped and left in a critical condition has been abandoned by her parents at India's leading hospital, an opposition leader has revealed amid growing anger over sexual assaults on children.
Sushma Swaraj, parliamentary leader of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, was visiting another five year old rape victim in a critical condition whose case had sparked protests throughout the capital when she was told by nurses of the abandoned girl and other victims they had treated.
The discovery of more child rape victims at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has revived the intense debate and national introspection over the scale of sexual violencein the country which followed the gang rape of a 23 year old student on a Delhi bus in December. She died two weeks later from chronic internal injuries.
Mrs Swaraj said she had believed that debate would lead to improvemed public safety for women, but Indian women are now more at risk than before. "I had thought that after Damini case thinking will change. Unfortunately, the situation has worsened," she said.
Human rights campaigners said there had been a 336 per cent increased in child rapes in India since 2001, from 2,113 cases to 7,112 in 2011. But even this figure is likely to be an underestimate because only a minority of cases are reported to the police, they said.
In this latest case, the family had reported their daughter missing soon after she disappeared but the police were reluctant to investigate and later offered them 2000 rupees, around 25 pounds, to remain silent about it, the family said. When the family and their friends demonstrated over their treatment, one officer, who has since been suspended, was seen slapping a young female protestor.
Their daughter had been kidnapped on April 15th and raped and object-raped in an hour long ordeal before she was locked in a room and left to die. She was found 40 hours later and was rushed to hospital where doctors said she had suffered chronic internal injuries and that they had found a bottle of hair oil inside her. She has since had a colostomy operation and may face further reconstructive surgery, but is now in a stable condition, doctors said....
http://www.businessinsider.com/5-year-old-victim-abandoned-in-hospital-as-india-faces-child-rape-crisis-2013-4
In 1993, two constitutional amendments established a 33 percent minimum quota for women in village and district councils. And in 1996, the Women’s Reservation Bill (WRB) was introduced to extend that quota to the lower house of the Indian Parliament and all state legislative assemblies.
Nineteen years later, the bill is still pending. Critically, the most powerful opposition to the WRB has come from OBC and Dalit parties, which fear that quotas for women would limit the lower castes’ newfound political power. For many, caste identification is stronger than gender identification, and the women’s movement has long been criticized for being overly focused on the concerns of upper-caste women and insufficiently sensitive to the problem of caste.
Some critics assert that in basing political representation on caste, India has made caste identity inescapable. Upward social movement does not change caste identity; an individual who improves his or her economic status is still marked by his or her caste.
Although quotas have opened up the possibility of political representation—and even higher education—for some lower-caste individuals, they have not brought about increased equality in the social sphere. Caste persists in the social realm in part because caste identity is the path to political recognition and power. And as long as caste identity is the key to political recognition, the pernicious social aspects of caste will continue to define Indian society.
At the end of the debate in the Constituent Assembly that approved the Indian constitution in 1950, Ambedkar warned, “We are going to enter a life of contradictions. In politics, we will have equality, and in social and economic life, we will have inequality.… We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment, or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this assembly has so laboriously constructed.”
Indian democracy has not blown up. But Ambedkar’s contradiction persists, and the caste foundation of India’s political structure maintains the hierarchy at the root of the country’s tremendous inequality of status and condition.
Much of the careful thought of the 19th-century reformers and the founding generation has been shunted aside by the force of caste-based politics on the one hand and capitalist materialism on the other. The political principles on which the Indian state is founded have not been sufficient to create an inclusive, egalitarian society.
Although the post-independence generation of Congress politicians promoted a secular vision of the Indian nation, they did not pursue the kinds of reforms that might have brought social reality closer to their political ideal. In doing so, they opened the way for the ascendance of caste-based politics and, ultimately, the more reactionary rise of religion in politics.
Hindu nationalism, with its dual focus on cultivating traditional social practices and providing social services afforded neither by the state nor economic growth, would seem to provide the strongest alternative to a modern capitalist society.
But Hindu nationalism itself has adapted to India’s increasing wealth. The upper castes, particularly the Brahmins, once prided themselves on simple, even ascetic, living; they now hold up material success as another sign of caste superiority. The traditional Hindu elite is no longer distinguishable from the modern economic elite.
http://www.newsweek.com/modis-india-caste-inequality-and-rise-hindu-nationalism-356734
Since 1995, Naatak has been staging plays in the South Bay. The theater company identifies itself as the "largest Indian theater in the U.S." Its latest musical production, "Vrindavan," takes a closer look at the politics and social ills behind the city of Vrindavan, where widows are sent to live after their husbands die. We talk to playwright and artistic director Sujit Saraf about the new production and the company's larger artistic role in Silicon Valley. We'll also talk to KQED senior arts editor Chloe Veltman about what to watch for this fall arts season.
Host: Michael Krasny
Guests:
Sujit Saraf, novelist, playwright and director of Naatak, a theater and film company in Santa Clara
Chloe Veltman, senior arts editor for KQED
http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201508261030
BloomsburyPakistan organised an event, ‘Social change in Pakistan: a conversation with Mr
Arif Hasan’ on May 11, 2015.
The migration from rural areas, along with global influences from informal capitalism, forced
huge changes in the character of urban areas as well, particularly in katchi abaadis. Once
these abaadis were purely working class settlements, women did not work, the informal
sector worked only within these abaadis, and language reflected social hierarchy. Now, these
are no longer working class settlements: global communication technologies have flooded
them, women have educated themselves and are working in service sectors, and people have
developed a strong sense of identity and aspirations that they did not have before. If we take
the age group from 15 to 24 as an illustration, the effect of these changes can be observed. In
1981, 39% women and 17% of men in this age group in Karachi were married; extrapolating
the 1998 census shows that less than 18% of women and less than 6% of men are now
married. As the demand for education increases, a huge network of private schools has
emerged. As children of this generation grew up, many new universities were established,
both in public and private sector.
A very powerful trend that captures various aspects of these changes is the significant rise of
court marriages. In 1992, there were 10-15 marriage applications per day. By 2006 this had
risen to more than 200 per day and by some estimates the number now stands at around 800
per day. This rise indicates changes in family structures, weakening of biradari system,
heightened consciousness of individuality and personal aspirations.
Just as in rural areas, these progressive changes are being resisted in urban areas as well by
conservative forces which have joined hands with religious elements and use informal
economic power – land mafias for example – to retain power. The religious element received
a huge support from the state as well during the Zia era which saw state suppression of
student politics, artistic activities and political dissent. As a result, the overall tenor of society
has remained conservative with a rising anti-western/modern discourse. Yet, beneath the
surface a process of individualism and freedom continues, as reflected in the figures for
education and marriage choices. One way in which many young people, women in particular,
have negotiated these dynamics is by adopting conservative religious symbolism – the veil,
for example – while continuing to participate in modern life.
Despite the generally pessimistic picture painted above, Mr Hasan remained optimistic about
the future. He saw the current struggles as a necessary phase in social transformation, and
expressed the belief that human spirit for freedom has awakened in the younger generation,
particularly women, and in the medium to long term this spirit will overcome conservative
resistance. His approach was a good example of Gramscian words that “I'm a pessimist
because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.”
http://nebula.wsimg.com/e1220c34bb211727621e460d11b3f9a5?AccessKeyId=D38F223A1FE944D1A306&disposition=0&alloworigin=1
Two men were arrested for rape and murder in Sonipat town, and six more were being investigated after the victim's mother accused them of involvement, Ashwin Shenvi, superintendent of police, told the Reuters news agency.
The 23-year old woman, a labourer, was taken by the men - at least one of whom knew her - by car from near her home in Sonipat to the nearby city of Rohtak, where they raped her, Shenvi said.
"When she said to them she would complain, they hammered her skull in with bricks," he said. "The way that they brutalised her is horrific."
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-40553992#
Police in India say they have arrested a 60-year-old man who fatally shot his wife for serving his dinner late.
Ashok Kumar came home drunk on Saturday night and got into an argument with his wife, Rupesh Singh, a senior police officer in Ghaziabad city near the capital Delhi, told the BBC.
Sunaina, 55, was taken to hospital with a gunshot wound to her head, but by then she had died, reports said.
Mr Kumar has confessed to his crime and now regrets his actions, Mr Singh said.
"The man [Mr Kumar] used to drink every day. On Saturday, he came home drunk and started having an argument with his wife. She was upset with his drinking habit and wanted to talk about it, but he wanted dinner immediately," Mr Singh said.
"He got frustrated with the delay and shot her," he added.
India 'fails' victims of abuse
Indian brides get bats to prevent abuse
Domestic violence has been the most reported violent crime against women in the country every year for more than a decade now.
In 2015, an incident of domestic violence was reported every four minutes under the legal definition of dowry deaths, harassment over dowry related crimes, cruelty by husband or his relatives and domestic violence.
The BBC's Geeta Pandey in Delhi says such violence is not unique to India - it occurs around the world - but what sets it apart in India from many other countries is the culture of silence and approval that often surrounds it.
According to a family survey carried out by the government, more than 54% of men and 51% of women said it was ok for a man to beat his wife if she disrespected her in-laws, neglected her home or children, or even over something as trivial as putting less - or more - salt in the food.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/07/20/a-10-year-old-indian-girl-was-raped-and-impregnated-a-court-denied-her-an-abortion/?utm_term=.b7979947322f
India has the world’s largest population of sexually abused children, with a child under age 10 raped every 13 hours, as the BBC reported in May. More than 10,000 children were raped in the country in 2015. In most cases, the abusers are relatives or family friends, according to the BBC.
A court in India on Tuesday ordered a 10-year-old girl whose parents say she was raped and impregnated by her uncle to carry her fetus to term, ruling she is too young and her pregnancy too advanced to have an abortion.
The girl, who has not been identified, is six months pregnant and sought medical attention after her maternal uncle allegedly raped her several times, CBS News reported.
The district court in the northern city of Chandigarh based its decision on an opinion by a panel of doctors from the city’s Government Medical College and Hospital, where the girl was examined, according to the hospital’s medical superintendent.
“If you abort then the risk to life is greater,” the superintendent told The Washington Post in a brief phone interview Wednesday.
A 1970s law in India known as the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act bars abortions beyond 20 weeks, though courts have made exceptions if the fetus is not viable or if the mother’s life is at risk.
According to CBS, the hospital’s eight-member panel determined that the fetus was viable and could survive even if it was delivered immediately. CBS quoted an unnamed senior doctor on the panel who said abortion was “not an option at this stage.”
The hospital told the Times of India on Tuesday: “The victim is six months pregnant, as revealed by her ultrasound reports. We have submitted our medical advice to the court regarding termination of the foetus.”
The girl’s parents found out their daughter was pregnant after she complained of stomach pains, according to the Indian Express. She later reportedly told her mother that her uncle had raped her a half-dozen times when he visited the family home. The uncle was arrested, and the parents petitioned the court for an abortion, the Indian Express reported.
Doctors say it is biologically possible for a girl to become pregnant as soon as she begins ovulating, although rare for a 10 year old. By and large, medical experts agree that carrying and delivering a baby at age 15 or younger can come with life-threatening complications, including anemia, high blood pressure and hemorrhaging.
On top of that, pelvic bones do not fully develop until women reach their late teens. Before that point vaginal births and full-term pregnancies are dangerous, and even Caesarean sections present significant risks, they say. Such problems, along with complications from unsafe abortions, were the top cause of death among female adolescents in 2015, according to the World Health Organization.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/women-in-india-are-also-saying-metoo
“Like most Indian women, I am not safe,” Indian author Meghna Pant wrote on Facebook Monday. “I cannot walk where I want. I cannot wear what I want. Not unless I’m ‘asking for it’… #MeToo.”
Pant is one of many Indian women flooding social media with their stories of sexual harassment and assault, just as women in the United States and around the globe do the same.
About a week after dozens of women came forward to make sexual misconduct allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, the owner of a popular bar in Pune, India, called High Spirits was also accused of sexual harassment.
As with Weinstein, an Indian blogger said a culture of silence and inaction among men with power kept the behavior from being brought to light.
Other recent high-profile cases in India include rape charges against a former magazine editor, accusations of sexual harassment against a former judge for the Supreme Court of India, and the conviction of rape for a prominent Indian guru.
In India — where a woman is raped every 20 minutes — sexual harassment and assault has become an ongoing national conversation. 2017 was brought in with reports of mass molestation at New Year’s Eve celebrations in Bangalore, and there’s a popular word, “eve-teasing,” to describe public sexual harassment, though many women find that term problematic.
Abortion is a lot more common in India than government data suggests.
A study published this week (pdf) in The Lancet Global Health journal estimates that 15.6 million abortions occurred in the country in 2015, significantly higher than the 701,415 recorded by the ministry of health and family welfare for 2014-2015. Moreover, a staggering 78% (12.3 million) of these abortions were undertaken outside of health facilities, suggesting that Indian women are taking the procedure into their own hands.
The study was conducted by a team of authors from the Guttmacher Institute in New York, the International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, and the Population Council, New York.
To estimate the national abortion incidence, they used data mostly from the 2015 Health Facilities Survey of six Indian states—Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Uttar Pradesh—NGO clinics, and abortion pill sales and distribution.
The authors say that India’s national surveys and official statistics have so far offered an incomplete picture as they don’t take into account abortions by private-sector doctors who don’t work at registered facilities or abortion services provided by professionals of alternative medicine, notably Ayurveda, Unani, and Homeopathy. The government data also excludes untrained providers of abortions and abortion pills that don’t require prescriptions. These pills have become increasingly available in pharmacies from the early 2000s.
“Most abortions are happening without prescriptions and outside of facilities via chemists and informal vendors, which suggests the need to improve facility-based services,” the authors write. While abortion pills can be effective and safe when administered correctly, they say it is unclear if Indian women are getting the right information and using them properly.
In conservative India, where talking about sex remains a taboo, previous studies have shown that the use of contraceptives has been declining. More people are turning to morning-after pills and abortions despite the potential health risks. While the study was unable to determine the reasons for the high rate of abortions in India, they accounted for one-third of the pregnancies in 2015. And almost half of the pregnancies that year were unintended, the authors say.
The brutalisation of women in India has increased alarmingly in recent times. Rape, molestation, and abuse have spiralled out of control, with the incidents of violence becoming uglier and more frightening.
Violence against women happens everywhere. While its causes vary in different settings, in India the root of sexual violence is largely seeped in cultural factors and values that have continued in perpetuity. These have engendered beliefs in male superiority and the social inferiority of women.
Therefore, it is no surprise that little has changed since December 2012, when a 23-year-old physiotherapy student was gang-raped in a moving bus. The incident sparked global outrage and led to a major reform of India’s rape laws in a bid lower the number of sexual assaults in the country. Given the enormous public reaction, many perceived this to be a tipping point.
The reforms sought to speed up trials, increase penalties for offenders, and expand the legal definition of rape. In addition, the government set aside $480 million, known as the Nirbhaya Fund, for new women’s safety initiatives.
A little more than six years later, change is slow. The collective sense of outrage is ignited as each fresh incident hits the headlines, only to be followed by a deathly silence.
Take this example. In January, a 28-year-old man was arrested in Delhi on charges of raping his 8-month-old female cousin. Prior to that, five alleged rapes, mostly of minors, occurred within five days in the northern Indian state of Haryana. The crude and frighteningly brutal nature of these attacks led to widespread shock and despair across India at the inability to prevent such crimes.
Vulnerable and poor families also face humiliation and intimidation if they choose to pursue cases and seek justice. The Human Rights Watch report “Everyone Blames Me” found that women and girls who survive rape and other sexual violence often suffer humiliation at police stations and hospitals.
The statistics speaks for themselves. According to data from India’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the country recorded more than 36,000 cases of rape, sexual assault, and similar offences against children in 2016. The rising number of cases and the inordinately low conviction rate have brought no cheer to victims.
What’s more, sexual violence is especially prevalent in rural areas where gender-based marginalisation is intensified by low social status. The NCRB has found that more than four women belonging to the Dalit caste – the lowest in Indian society – are raped each day. Frustration has grown with the insufficient protection provided by the legal system.
Instances of acid attacks, which are a form of sexual violence, have been reported in nearly all parts of the world, but they are particularly endemic to South Asia, especially India.
Laws restrict the sale of acid and chemicals in India; however, up to 300 acid attacks are reported each year, according to Stop Acid Attacks. Activists on the ground say this number is just skimming the surface, and the real rate is much higher. Spurned marriage proposals or property disputes are often blamed for attacks.
Another major reason for the systemic violence against women is that, despite the catchy slogans and advertisement blitzkriegs to save and help the girl child, Indian parents retain an entrenched preference for sons over daughters. This in many ways accounts for skewed gender ratios across several states, especially in northern India, that have led to sex determination tests and consequently feticide.
Deepa Narayan
Tragic rape cases have shocked the country. But the everyday suffering of 650 million Indian women and girls goes unnoticed
India can arguably be accused of the largest-scale human rights violation on Earth: the persistent degradation of the vast majority of its 650 million girls and women. And this includes the middle classes, as I found when interviewing 600 women and men in India’s cities.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/27/india-abuse-women-human-rights-rape-girls
India is at war with its girls and women. The planned rape of eight-year-old Asifa in a temple by several men, including a policeman who later washed the clothes she was wearing to destroy evidence, was particularly horrific. Asifa’s rape has outraged and shaken the entire country. Yet sexual abuse in India remains widespread despite tightening of rape laws in 2013. According to the National Crimes Records Bureau, in 2016 the rape of minor girls increased by 82% compared with the previous year. Chillingly, across all rape cases, 95% of rapists were not strangers but family, friends and neighbours.
The culturally sanctioned degradation of women is so complete that the prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, launched a national programme called Beti Bachao (Save Our Girls). India can arguably be accused of the largest-scale human rights violation on Earth: the persistent degradation of the vast majority of its 650 million girls and women. And this includes the middle classes, as I found when interviewing 600 women and men in India’s cities.
India’s women are traumatised in less obvious ways than by tanks in the streets, bombs and warlords. Our oppression starts innocuously: it occurs in private life, within families, with girls being locked up in their own homes. This everyday violence is the product of a culture that bestows all power on men, and that does not even want women to exist. This is evident in the unbalanced sex ratios at birth, even in wealthy families. But India also kills its women slowly. This violence is buried in the training of women in some deadly habits that invite human rights violations, but that are considered the essence of good womanhood.
The first teaches girls to be afraid of their own bodies. When a girl is not supposed to exist, 1.3 billion people collectively pretend that girls don’t have bodies and especially no sexual parts. If girls do not have bodies, sexual molestation is not possible, and if it does happen, it has to be denied, and if it cannot be denied, the girl must be blamed.
Denial of sexuality in homes is another habit that is deadly to girls. Almost every woman I interviewed had experienced some form of sexual molestation. Only two had told their mothers, only to be dismissed, “Yes, this happens in families,” or “No, this did not happen.” Indian government surveys show that 42% of girls in the country have been sexually abused.
Speech is another basic human right. To have a voice, to speak up, is to be recognised, to belong. But girls are trained in silence. They are told to be quiet, to speak softly, dheere bolo, to have no opinions, no arguments, no conflicts. Silent women disappear. They are easy to ignore, overrule, and violate without repercussions. Impunity flourishes.
One of my earliest memories of walking in the streets of India involves being groped by a stranger as I went out to dinner with my family. I still viscerally remember that moment — and the moment right after, when I turned to the man who groped me and apologized, thinking it was my fault for, apparently, falling into his hands. At the time, I couldn’t believe anyone actually wanted to touch me there.
I was just six years old.
Incidents like this are commonplace for Indian women. In fact, every single one I know has their own story to relate — some more serious than others. So when I first heard of a newly-released Thomson Reuters Foundation report that ranked India as the most dangerous country in the world for women, I wasn’t surprised. You only have to spend a day in India to realize that, if you are a woman in a public setting, you had better be armed with either a large handbag or pepper spray.
But in India, the response to the report was more impassioned. It generated outrage among politicians, academics and civil society members — groups that generally struggle to find common ground. How, they asked, could India be ranked higher than countries such as Syria or the Democratic Republic of Congo, where women are caught in the middle of violent conflict, and where sexual violence is routinely used as a tool of war? And why was it listed higher than Saudi Arabia, where leading female activists are still languishing in prison for championing women’s right to drive?
For its part, India’s Ministry of Women and Child Development rejected the report, criticizing its methodology and claiming that it was a clear effort “to malign the nation.” Politicians from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) likewise accused Thomson Reuters of having an “agenda,” though they did not specify what that means. But this knee-jerk defensiveness completely misses the point.
Yes, the report is methodologically flawed. It was based on an opinion poll of 548 “experts” — who have not yet been identified — and relies on perception rather than fact. We do not know what data and criteria were used to compare countries, or even where the surveyed experts were from. These factors could have vast implications for how countries were ultimately ranked.
And yes, in terms of actual numbers, India still has a lower reported rate of rape per 100,000 people than most other countries, including the United States. This is thought to be likely because of extreme levels of under-reporting, though there is some evidence that reporting rates are on the rise. Statistics are an imperfect way to compare countries but, at first glance, singling out India for censure seems misleading.
Still, even with its flaws, the report highlights something important: Despite lawmakers’ attempts to convince us that India is safer for women now than it was before an infamous 2012 gang rape and murder in Delhi, conditions remain largely the same. Women still face harassment and abuse on a daily basis — just ask the scores of women who were molested en masse on the streets of Bangalore last year. For all of Modi’s rhetoric about “treating women like goddesses,” women are still treated as anything but.
The Thomson Reuters report casts a spotlight on a question that is not asked often enough: How much has the Modi government — or any Indian government, for that matter — actually done to tackle violence against women? The BJP can point to its large-scale awareness program for girls’ empowerment, Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao (Save the Girl, Educate the Girl).
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/world/asia/rape-chennai-india.html
For months, the police say, a group of men took turns raping an 11-year-old girl.
In the gated community in Chennai, India, where the girl lived with her parents, the men gave her soft drinks laced with drugs, the police said. They filmed themselves raping her, brandishing knives and threatening to release the videos if the girl told her family, the police said.
The men were not intruders in the gated community, but employees who greeted residents, operated the elevator or brought water coolers to apartments.
When news broke on Monday that the authorities in Chennai, a coastal city in the southeast, had arrested 17 men accused of raping or molesting the girl over a period of seven months, chaos erupted at the complex in an older part of the city. Residents dismissed the building’s remaining staff members. Women volunteered to guard the complex’s entrances, and some called for the suspects to be hanged.
Indian television channels ran lengthy news segments with banner headlines that read, simply, “Chennai Horror.”
“This story has shaken me to the core,” Rohini Singh, an Indian journalist, wrote on Twitter. “An entire community got together to rape a child. I cannot even fathom the depravity and horror of this act.”
This has been a year punctuated by brutal crimes against young girls in India. In January, an 8-year-old was kidnapped, locked in a Hindu temple, gang raped and beaten to death. In May, a teenager in central India was set on fire after her parents told a village council that men in the area had raped their daughter. In June, a 7-year-old was raped in the state of Madhya Pradesh, also in central India. Afterward, the two men slit her throat and left her to die.
A poll released in June by the Thomson Reuters Foundation named India the most dangerous country in the world for women, ahead of war-torn countries like Afghanistan and Syria. In India, a rape occurs at least every 20 minutes, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau.
Indian officials have struggled to figure out what to do. The government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved a measure in April to raise jail sentences for rapists and introduce the death penalty for those convicted of raping children under the age of 12.
But it is unclear whether the law will have much of an effect. India’s judicial system is notoriously backlogged, with millions of cases stuck in overburdened courts. Many of the crimes against young girls that gripped India this year have dropped out of the news cycle.
Women in India are also 2.1 times more likely to die by suicide than the global average, accounting for 71 per cent of deaths in women aged under 40, according to a study published in medical journal The Lancet.
Suicide was the leading cause of death in women aged 15 to 29, with death rates higher among women than men in that age group, it said.
The study also found "arranged and early marriage, young motherhood, low social status and domestic violence" were factors contributing to the nation's high suicide rates.
"In Western countries a marriage is protective to women but in India it seems that marriage is not protective," said Dr Manjula O'Connor, a Melbourne-based psychiatrist who works closely with Australia's Indian community.
"It relates to the patriarchal factors and the level of oppression and lack of autonomy that women feel within a marital situation."
University of Adelaide associate professor Peter Mayer, who is an expert on suicide in India, has coined it the "desperate housewives" effect.
Though the female suicide rate has actually fallen since 1990, nearly two in five global female suicides are recorded in India, making it a "public health crisis" in the country, Dr Mayer said.
As in most countries, overall suicide death rates in India are higher among men than women, at 21.2 and 14.7 per 100,000 people respectively, but globally Indian men account for about 25 per cent of male suicides, the Lancet study said.
Dr O'Connor said she believed suicide was also a problem among young women in Australia's Indian community.
However, statistics are difficult to pin down, as the Australian Bureau of Statistics does not release information on suicide deaths based on ethnicity or culture.
Family violence and murder in Australian Hindu and Sikh communities
There are growing concerns about a recent, significant increase in domestic violence in Hindu and Sikh communities, a crisis which has become public in a spate of horrific deaths.
Many of those affected were young women who travelled from India to Australia to enter arranged marriages, arriving with "dreams of freedom" only to find their new husband is "coercive or controlling", Dr O'Connor said.
"They fight back against the demand for dowry or control over their wages, and when they fight back it leads to family violence," she said, which can compound with stressors such as social isolation and mental health issues.
The practice of dowry — common in India and among Indian communities overseas — involves a bride's family giving money or goods to her husband once they are married.
A Senate inquiry into dowry abuse in Australia is due to hand down its report on Thursday December 6.
Discussion of suicide and related mental illness still carries a heavy stigma in India, with researchers saying it presents a barrier to addressing some of the root causes.
"In India the idea that you might have some kind of mental health problem is not only a problem for you, it will affect your sister's ability to get married," Dr Mayer said.
"There are all sorts of constraints to one's ability to admit depression."
The burden of poverty weighs down heavier on girls and women in India than it does on the opposite sex.
An Oxfam report on inequality published yesterday (Jan. 21) revealed that in the workplace, women still receive 34% less wages than their male counterparts for the same work.
And as you go further down the social ladder, things get worse.
“When governments reduce their expenditures on essential public services such as education and healthcare, women and girls are the first ones to lose out on these services,” according to the report.
Girl children from the lower strata of society are lucky to see a classroom at all. In India, girls belonging to families in the top 20% get nine years of education on average, while girls from families in the bottom 20% get none at all. Even those who make it to school are often pulled out when money is tight, the report said. In addition, more than 23 million girls drop out of school annually because of a lack of toilets in school and proper menstrual hygiene management facilities.
Then, because social norms subject women to domesticity, they often have to stay home and look after the young and the elderly.
Women in India spend around five hours a day on unpaid care work while men devote a mere half an hour on average. “This disproportionate burden of unpaid care work by women means they lose out on opportunities to participate in paid labour or are forced to undertake paid labour leading to their time poverty and loss in well-being,” the report said.
This imbalanced system leaves women vulnerable. A survey of 1,000 households across the central-Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Uttar Pradesh last year revealed that people thought it was acceptable to criticise and beat women if they slipped up while carrying out unpaid care work. In turn, violence continuously sets women back economically. It’s a vicious cycle.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-57968350
Women and girls in small town and rural India live under severe restrictions with village heads or family patriarchs often dictating what they wear, where they go or who they talk to, and any perceived misstep is considered a provocation and must be punished.
No wonder then that the alleged assault of Neha for her choice of clothing is just one among a number of brutal attacks reported on girls and young women by their family members that have recently shocked India.
Last month, a gut-wrenching video that emerged from Alirajpur district in the neighbouring state of Madhya Pradesh showed a 20-year-old tribal woman being beaten by her father and three male cousins.
Following outrage, police lodged a complaint against the men and said she was being "punished" for running away from her "abusive" marital home.
A week before the incident, reports said two girls were mercilessly beaten up by their family members for talking on the phone with a male cousin in the neighbouring district of Dhar.
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Reports of girls and young women being brutally assaulted by family members have recently made headlines in India. The incidents have also put the spotlight on how unsafe girls and women are within their own homes.
Last week, 17-year-old Neha Paswan was allegedly beaten to death by members of her extended family in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh because they didn't like her wearing jeans.
Her mother, Shakuntala Devi Paswan, told BBC Hindi that the teenager had been severely beaten with sticks by her grandfather and uncles after an argument over her clothes at their home in Savreji Kharg village in Deoria district, one of the least developed regions in the state.
"She had kept a day-long religious fast. In the evening, she put on a pair of jeans and a top and performed her rituals. When her grandparents objected to her attire, Neha retorted that jeans were made to be worn and that she would wear it," her mother said.
The argument escalated, resulting in the violence, she claims.
Shakuntala Devi said as her daughter lay unconscious, her in-laws called an autorickshaw and said they were taking her to hospital.
"They wouldn't let me accompany them so I alerted my relatives who went to the district hospital looking for her but couldn't find her."
The next morning, Shakuntala Devi said, they heard that the body of a girl was hanging from the bridge over the Gandak river that flows through the region. When they went to investigate, they discovered it was Neha's.
Police have lodged a case of murder and destruction of evidence against 10 people, including Neha's grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and the auto driver. The accused have yet to make any public statement.
A 15-year-old girl is being treated at a hospital in northern India after she was allegedly set on fire by a man accused of raping and impregnating her in the latest case of violence against women to shock the country.
Kamlesh Kumar Dixit, a senior police official in Uttar Pradesh state, told CNN the man, 18, and his mother were arrested on Monday on suspicion of attempted murder after they allegedly poured kerosene on the girl and set her ablaze on October 6.
Police also accuse the man – who is a cousin of the alleged victim – of raping her about three months ago after which she became pregnant, Dixit said.
Upon learning of the girl’s pregnancy, her family and the family of the alleged rapist had discussed whether the two should get married, Dixit added.
Citing police, the Press Trust of India – the country’s largest news agency – reported the girl was lured to the alleged rapist’s home on the pretext of getting married to him when she was allegedly set alight. However, Dixit declined to comment when asked about this detail.
India has long grappled with an epidemic of violence against women and girls in the deeply patriarchal country. And campaigners say the alleged involvement of a woman in this latest case demonstrates the scale of internalized misogyny in society.
“I’ve become so numb to stories like this. There is a lack of empathy in our country,” said Yogita Bhayana, an anti-rape activist from New Delhi. “For years, we have been trying to change things. This case demonstrates a failure of our system. The girl should have been helped.”
The girl’s condition and the status of her pregnancy are unknown. CNN ha