Swayam Siddha

Women are discriminated against and exploited in India even today, when the voice of the fairer sex has found a stronger voice in all aspects of life. Even as our social structure is undergoing changes for the better, the chasm between the two sexes is still noticeable. And if it happens to be an orphan girl, chances of her being exploited by society increase manifold. It is imperative that such females are prevented from being dragged into the dark undercurrents of life. They need to be protected in the initial stages and then made self dependant for their survival. Swayam Siddha is an effort in the direction of providing necessary education, imparting certain vocational skills and creating employment opportunities for these females. After all, a woman is the creator of life. If anyone deserves a life of dignity and respect, it is she.

A noted feminist Germaine Greere once remarked, “ if we look at the women and cows in India, there is hardly any significant difference, both are worshipped as well as worked to death.” In India, on one hand women are worshipped as ‘Lakshmi’ and ‘Saraswasti’, on the other hand they are tortured and exploited in many ways and also kept systematically away from the awareness of human benefits and human needs. The human rights of women form an integral and indivisible part of universal human rights and yet we see them exposed to various forms of discrimination and violence all over the world, there is a need of complete eradication of all forms of discrimination against women, both hidden and overt. The subjugation of women is confined not only to the developing nations, but the developed nations too suffer from gender discrimination, though not as massive as we face it today.

The birth of a girl child itself is considered a bane than a boon. They do not bring as much joy and happiness in a family than a male child. The males are supposed to be the one to carry on the family’s name, whereas females are to get married and leave their parental place and adjust in her new marital home. Therefore, the lives of women are restricted to either its parents or husband’s domain. One of the main reasons of a girl being the sorrow of her parents is that of dowry, because of which they are more of a burden on their parents than a child. Any marriage of a daughter in India takes its toll on the parents with the ever-increasing demand of the groom’s parents, so a girl-child is less welcome in most of the families. Unfortunately, women in India have become victims of ageold patriarchal tradition, which distorts their growth socially, mentally, personally and physically.

The discrimination against girl-child has led to their malnourishment, diseased and early death. The males are preferred over their female counterparts when it comes to education, health, proper food, clothes, etc. At work place too, women are generally paid low wages compared to their male colleagues, given the fact that both the parties do same work. We also see women despite proving its efficiency are not entrusted the task of managing the entire operations, which is considered exclusively a male domain. She has to break free from the shackles of inequality and demand her rights.

In India girls have not been provided equal opportunity for access to education due to various causes i.e., domestic responsibility, early marriage, traditional belief of parents that education is of little value to girls, as they are most likely to be confined to the four walls of the household; cooking, cleaning, looking after the family, and also demand for dowry because of which money is not spent on the education of the girl child. She has no role in family decisions and no right in property. From the very childhood, she has been taught to be meek and submissive, self-sacrificing, restraining constraint against any form of injustice. She has no dignity of her own, could not raise any voice against atrocities in private and social life. She has no rights or says pertaining to her well being rather they were imposed on her by our social norms. A woman’s life is dictated by the moral codes of society, which restricts her freedom to be creative. The number of crimes reported in our country has been alarming, with crimes on women forming quite a number. Be it foeticide to infanticide, bride burning, eve teasing, forced prostitution, kidnapping, sexual harassment, sati, devadasi, trafficking, wife beating, rape, and various other crimes. These women seem to be at the receiving end for criminal offences against them. Violence against women is a complex phenomenon-deeply rooted in the way society is set up-cultural beliefs, power relations, economic power imbalance and masculine idea of male dominance. The infamous Gujarat carnage saw many women and children as easy targets by miscreants. Whether it is war or a communal riot, the women are the ones to be tortured given their insecure state in society. The saddest part is that the perpetrators of the crime is known to most of the victims and Still they are unable to do anything for fear of being stigmatized and ostracized from society.

In earlier times, the female infant would be disposed off within minutes of being born, with the advent in technology, the introduction of pre-natal testing (where the sex of the infant is determined) ensures the foetus of a female being eliminated. Despite a ban on SDT (Sex Determination Test), such activities are carried out illegally, which altogether requires a serious probe to stop merciless human killing. In addition, technology advancement is a key factor in any development of a nation, but such barbaric acts have led us to lose faith in technology, which kills humanity.

The media, both print as well as software is responsible for partly damaging the image of women. It is a medium, which can either lead or misled audience thereby creating an impact on the society. It can be good or bad. The stereotypical image of women in India usually portrayed in the media has done considerable damage to the status of women. The women one can see being depicted as no more than commodity is exploited. The media can be fruitful in bringing about a change in the status of women by carrying out on a positive image of the women.

A number of efforts have been made to bring social and economic equality by the social reforms. One such social reformer being Raja Ram Mohan Roy. He strongly believed in gender equality and worked towards their reforment. He was strongly against the practice of Sati and educated the people and raised their consciousness against the evil practice of sati, because he knew that only legal sanction will not help to make this reform Other social reformers like Dr. Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi drew attention of the people to social inequality to which they were subjected. Besides the government as well as non-governmental organisations made lot of efforts towards welfare of society.

As far as women rights in the context of India is concerned, it can be seen from independence period itself that human rights activists did not get the importance they deserved. Much of the creativity of the human rights movement over the past forty years has come from expanding the concept to address areas such as racial discrimination, socio-economic rights, and the collective right to address the degradations and violations that are fundamental threat to our human dignity and right to life, liberty and security of person. “When women are denied democracy and human rights in private, their human rights in the public sphere also suffer, since what occurs in “private” shapes their ability to participate fully in the public arena”.

We at “Swayam Siddha” aim towards dignity of women by nurturing them to be self- independent. The orphan girls as soon as they turn 16 or more are left off to make out their own living, these young girls are all of a sudden exposed to the grim reality of survival, some make it, while some succumb to the pressures of making it in and end up at the wrong side of their life. We seek to undertake these young girls under our wings and provide them with opportunities to make themselves independent. The girls would be given training in computers, handicrafts, cooking, personal-defense, crèche course etc so as to seek employment. We would create jobs for them, such as making home-cooked food for the office goers, delivering freshly chopped vegetables, grind spices, snacks, milk, fruits, newspapers, flowers, laundered clothes to the households. This would give them a platform to present their capabilities in better perspectives and give them a dignified standard of living. Their enhancement would inspire as many other women hoping to better their lives.

We see women living in the society in semi-human conditions. Their human rights are violated for at both family level and societal level they are more deprived socially, economically, educationally, culturally and politically than their male counterparts are. This is a period of globalization and scientific development, but when it comes to inequality and gender discrimination against women, not much has been achieved. The need of the hour is a major change in the content and organisation of education to counteract traditional belief in inequality between sexes. Gender equality should be placed on a global level. In order to give women their due status, society at large must be mobilized to redefine many cultural, social, economic, and political processes. Such changes will be possible if a new widespread consensus is reached to organize society in a moral way, based on mutual respect particularly between men and women.