Mysore “Marriage”: Curse of Muslim Women in Kerala

‘Mysore kalyanam’(Mysore Marriage), where Pathan Muslim men from Mysore marry brides from Kerala,a State of India thrives in the city despite bitter experiences for over a decade.

Local unemployed men — some of them anti-social elements, criminals, thieves and drug addicts, — marry girls from Wayanad, Malappuram and Kannur districts of Kerala only to get financial benefits. They divorce their wives later  for various reasons and leave them to fend for themselves. Some of the hapless women are left with three or four children to feed.
Often, the reason cited by men for divorce are trivial issues such as ‘wife has not learnt Kannada, she is not good at making candles or rolling beedis, not fit for Mysore culture or that her cooking skills are bad’.
For some of these men, marriage has become a habit. They go on marrying one girl after other and take dowry from parents of all helpless brides. They organise even fake establishments — parents, house, relatives, etc — in collusion with brokers, who get 15 to 20 per cent of the dowry amount.
Most of the women return to their parents voluntarily, while some are sent back to their native place by local leaders or police. However, a few of them stay back — most of them in Shantinagar, Ghousianagar, Nehrunagar and Kesare, where a majority of Muslims live — and lead a difficult life, because they do not want to be a burden on their parents.
K T Mathews Thomas, inspector, Udayagiri police station, said even on last Tuesday he came across such a case. But unfortunately, most of the cases go to Masjid committees in the area.
Thomas said, “Earlier this month a case was registered, wherein we sent the victim, Sareena, 24, wife of Aleem, an auto driver in Ghousianagar, to her home in Wayanad.”
Abdul Khadir Haji, secretary, Noorul Islam Sabha Committee, Ghousianagar, who has dealt with hundreds of such cases said 95 per cent of relationship in such marriages break within a few months — soon after the groom spends the dowry amount. Some relationships last for a few years. But the couple would have two or more children by then, which compounds the problem.
Most of the men involved in such marriages do not have a permanent address so that they can move from place to place marrying one woman after the other.
Women victims usually do not take legal action due to ignorance about their rights or language problem. Not many approach the police even though there is a women help desk at the CCB office on Ashoka Road. There is a Muslim special court to deal with such cases, but not many know about it.
Moulvi Umar Ali Shihab, Kerala Masjid, Ghousianagar, said the Masjid committee always discouraged such marriages, whenever an enquiry came from Kerala. “But most of the cases come here only after the couple get divorced,” he said.
Nizamudheen Noorani, administrator, Al-Noor English medium school, which caters to the needs of the children from slum areas in the locality, said about 125 students were victims of ‘Mysore kalyanam’.
He said even though the rate of such marriages was decreasing nowadays, brokers from Mysore and Kerala are still arranging quite a few of them. 
Parents in Kerala, who may have four or five daughters to be married off, are fooled by the brokers.

These women,mostly from poor background,married at an early age,usually at or before 18 years of age are married to men only because their parents think atleast they will be escaped from the poverty in the house and will have a good life.But in actual,these women only have a happy life lasting for about a month,and after that the dowry given by the girl's parents is spend by the husband and the problem starts.The first problem is of language as the grooms of Mysore knows only Kannada and the brides know only Malayalam.The first few days of marriage do not have this problem only because of the dowry.The next problem starts when the family relocates from the current house to a single room house in the slum.After relocation,usually these men leave their wives and would be back once in a month  or like that only for abusing,harassment on the basis of dowry.By the time these women would be pregnant and most of these women give birth to three or four children within five years of marriage and after that husband leaves them for ever.

As the condition of their families in Kerala is worse,most of them prefer to live in Mysore on the slums.The main source of money for these women is making Agarbathis(Incense Sandal Sticks) which earns them Rs.50 a day with which they have to live and look after their children.Most of these children do not go to school as their life does not permit them to study.This marriage was prevalent some 20 to 30 years back in Kerala and was predominant at that time.But because of Governmental and Police actions ,by the end of 90's it was somewhat eradicated.But recently some 3 to 4 years,the problem has started again.As the police of Karnataka state fears enter these slums,where some 10000 women are living in worse conditions which we cannot think of, some urgent action is needed from the part of Government or other Organisations for saving the life of these poor woman and to help another thousands who will be in the same trap in the future. Those who read this, at least pray for them and lend a hand for helping these poor sisters of ours.

By Sreejesh K

Vrindavan:The “City” of Widows

Manu Ghosh has told her story many times and now she is exhausted. “You will write and go away, but for me, nothing changes,” she says, sitting on her hard wooden bed at the Meera Sahbhagini Mahila Ashray Sadan in Vrindavan.

Forty years ago the newly widowed Manu Ghosh, now 92, came here from her village in West Bengal, living in a rented room, begging and singing bhajans. In 1999 when the ashram opened, she moved in but still depends on the charity of strangers. “I am here because of my devotion to Radha-Krishna,” she says. “This is where I will die and attain moksha.”

This’ is the city of widows where custom seems frozen in time despite its proximity to such symbols of resurgent India as a six-lane expressway. ‘This’ is an ashram of broken rooms and shattered hopes, where white-shrouded widows sleep in a covered courtyard open on all sides. ‘This’ is where life is reduced to a hope for death because only death brings salvation.

But it’s not death as much as devotion that guides this morning’s activities at the ashram, a dilapidated two-storey building with many rooms and nearly all toilets broken and unusable. Singing and chanting in the late morning light, the 135 women are gathered around Bindeshwar Pathak, the man behind Sulabh Shauchalaya and a person whose life’s mission has been to improve the lives of manual scavengers.

Pathak is here in response to a Supreme Court request to find out if he can ‘ameliorate the pitiable conditions’ of the widows. “This is not my field,” he admits. “But when I saw these women, it was heart-breaking and I could not deny the request.”

Already Pathak has opened an office in Vrindavan, earmarked Rs.20 lakh from Sulabh’s funds for the widows, ordered four ambulances and distributed a one-time allowance of R1,000 each to women who live in the four government-run ashrams. But, he says, he is here to learn.

Learn, for instance, about how nobody was prepared to cremate the widow who died in January and how, according to a report filed by the District Legal Services Authority, a sweeper had to be paid R 200 to take her body, cut it into pieces, stuff these in a sack and dump them in the river.

Depending on who you speak to, the number of widows who live in Vrindavan and its adjoining towns vary from 3,000 to 21,000. But widows are not the only abandoned women. Kamala from Orissa moved to Vrindavan after her husband left her because she couldn’t have children; 19-year-old Anamika came here after her in-laws threw her out for bringing insufficient dowry.

The women are entitled to a monthly pension of Rs.300 a month. They also sing at the various bhajan ashrams for which they getRs.10 a day plus a handful of uncooked rice and dal.

“We have been recommending investment in skill training so that at least the younger women can find dignified work,” says V Mohini Giri who heads the Guild of Service that works to improve the lives of widows. The 80 women at Ma-Dham, run by the Guild, can choose from courses from computers to beauty culture. Food is provided free.

Nobody goes hungry in Vrindavan, found a report filed by journalist Usha Rai for the Guild of Service. Twenty million pilgrims come here every year, many are eager to give to charity. It’s this generosity that has, tragically, led to an increase in the influx of widows and abandoned women, says the report.

Nearly 90 per cent of the widows surveyed said they didn’t want to go back. ‘Back’ is their parental home or with their husbands’ families where they are derided, ill-treated, often starved.

More than food or clothing or shelter what these forgotten women need is assimilation and inclusion. Mohini Giri, a widow, recalls being invited to a family wedding but when the time came for the bridegroom to tie the mangalsutra on the bride, she was asked to leave because ‘even my shadow could not fall on the ceremony’.

It’s this stigmatisation that must change before anything else does. The widows of Vrindavan who lead tragic, neglected lives have become a cliché. In any modern country, they would be considered productive citizens, capable of contributing to society. “A widow wants society’s acceptance more than its charity,” says Giri. Agrees Pathak: “At Sulabh, we work to restore dignity. But when you place a begging bowl in the hands of a woman, you steal her soul.”

Getting more money, building ashrams, funding kitchens is the easy part. Reclaiming the dignity of women caught in a time warp and granting them their rightful place within families and communities is the far greater challenge. For Manu Ghosh and thousands of others in Vrindavan it may already be too late.

Courtesy:Hindustan Times

By Sreejesh K

Rise of Domestic Women Abuse in Scotland

The number of reported incidents of domestic abuse in Scotland has increased by 7% in a year, government figures have shown.

The chief statistician said police recorded 59,847 cases in 2011-2012, rising from 55,698 the previous year.

But there was a 4% drop in the number of domestic abuse incidents being recorded as a crime or offence.

The Scottish government said the figures showed too many women and men were still being subjected to abuse.

According to the figures, domestic abuse was most likely to happen in the home, where 87% of incidents took place in 2011-12.

The victim was most commonly a woman, with 81% of cases having a female victim and male perpetrator. And women were at most risk between the ages of 22 and 25, while men were most likely to be victims between 31 and 35 years old.

The number of cases with a male victim and female perpetrator stood at 17% in 2011-12, which is an annual increase of one percentage point. There has been an 8% rise in these cases since 2002-03.

A total of 62% of cases this year involved people who had also been a victim of domestic abuse in the past, compared to 55% in 2010-11.

Sex offences

Assault, which accounted for 44% of all incidents, was the most commonly recorded crime or offence, with threatening or abusive behaviour second most common, at 17%.

The categories which saw significant falls were breach of the peace - which fell from 8,034 last year to 3,281 in 2011-12 - and attempted murders and serious assaults, which dropped from 369 to 307 - the lowest level over the 10-year period.

There was an increase in sex offences, from 185 in 2010-11 to 223 this year. In 2002-03 there were 79 reports of sexual offences so the current figure is nearly triple that of 10 years ago.

In 54% of cases, the domestic abuse incident was recorded as a crime or offence, compared to 58% the previous year.

The highest proportion of incidents to crimes was recorded by Grampian Police, at 69%, and the lowest was in the Lothian and Borders force area, at 33%.

And when an incident resulted in a crime or offence being recorded, a report was submitted to the procurator fiscal in 77% of cases in 2011-12, compared to 71.6% in 2010-11.

Dr Cheryl Stewart, from Scottish Women's Aid, said: "That a report of domestic abuse is made every 10 minutes is alarming, and we remain committed to stopping domestic abuse in Scotland.

"However, we are cautiously hopeful that the most recent statistics represent a willingness in victims to come forward, as SWA's members have also reported in increase in demand for their services.

"We are concerned that so few reports are being recorded as a crime or offence, and would welcome further analysis as to why this is happening."

She added: "We want to see the police enabled to gather and build strong cases that bring perpetrators of domestic abuse to justice, and are particularly looking forward to working with Scotland's new police force to improve practice and consistency in the handling of domestic abuse cases.

"The increase in crimes or offences reported to the Procurator Fiscal, however, is a positive step.

"Recent legislation around stalking and threatening or abusive behaviour is clearly being treated with appropriate seriousness - these are tactics commonly used by perpetrators to exert control over women and children, and we are pleased to see this recognised."

'Rigorous approach'

Health Secretary Alex Neil said: "The authorities take domestic abuse extremely seriously with police adopting a rigorous approach to tackling incidents since 2005 and I welcome the increase in reports submitted to the procurator fiscal to 77% from 59% in 2002-03.

"The Scottish government has committed £34m to tackling domestic abuse and other forms of violence against women over the next three years - more than double the investment made previously and we will continue to prioritise this work.

"Since 2007, funding for Violence Against Women work, including domestic abuse, has doubled and the Scottish government has demonstrated its commitment to maintaining spending in this crucial area of work."

He added: "We will also continue to work closely with police, councils, health boards and the voluntary sector to ensure that perpetrators are held to account, and that victims and their children have the services they require."

Lewis Macdonald, Labour's justice spokesman, said: "To have such a high number of domestic abuse incidents is very concerning. While it may show that more victims are coming forward it also shows we need to do more to stop domestic abuse in the first place.

"The increase in repeat victims raises concerns about how victims are being supported when they first come forward to report abuse. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to make this step and we need to ensure that when it is made, victims are protected.

"We need to roll out dedicated domestic abuse courts across the country and the single police force must take forward the example of Strathclyde Police by bringing forward a Domestic Abuse Taskforce."

Courtesy:BBC News

By Sreejesh Kaipully

India and Surrogate Mothers

A new trend in the West is, if you cannot conceive your own child, to use a surrogate mother in India. This process costs tens of thousands of dollars and frequently uses poor women who already have children so they will not become attached to the Western baby. The money the Indian woman makes is more than she could make in many years of working on her own.

When it comes to surrogate mothers below the poverty line, is it exploitation or not?

Shabnum Nur Mohammed Sheikh's reasons for bearing another woman's child are straightforward: the 60 rupees (80p) her husband earns from his food stall each day buys dinner but little else.

Shabnum's first surrogate pregnancy got her out of a shared shack in a slum and into a small flat. Her second will pay for uniforms, books, bags and eventually, she hopes, university fees for her three young daughters.
"I hope my kids will work in computers or something like that," Shabnum, 26, said. "Then they will look after me when I'm old."

Pushpa Pandiya, 33, also left the slums after buying a small apartment with money earned from, in her case, two surrogate pregnancies. She too has a bright young daughter.

"Education is getting very costly but it is essential," she said, explaining that she was about to embark on her third pregnancy for some "very nice" foreigners.

Since 2002, when the practice was legalised,India has become a world centre of "surrogacy tourism".
A relative lack of red tape and prices that are a quarter of those in the US or Europe have brought thousands of childless couples to Indian clinics to be matched with women like Shabnum and Pushpa.

The Confederation of Indian Industry predicts the business will generate $2.3bn (£1.5bn) annually by 2012. A recent report by the Indian Law Commission described it as a "pot of gold".

Radical legislation is to be introduced to bring some order to this booming but almost unregulated sector.
One measure will make it compulsory for prospective parents to carry proof that any infant born to a surrogate mother will have automatic citizenship in their home countries in an attempt to avoid messy legal battles.

A second will stop clinics that perform the clinical procedures from sourcing, supplying and taking care of the surrogate mothers themselves.

"The IVF clinics' job is to do IVF. We want them away from the potential areas where corruption and malpractice take place," said Dr RS Sharma, secretary of the bill's drafting committee and deputy director general of the Indian Council for Medical Research.

The draft bill bans post-natal contact between a surrogate mother and the child she has borne.
"It is natural that when it is inside you for nine months you have some feelings. But from the beginning we are conditioned not to involve our emotions," Pushpa said. "When they take the child, those days are a bit tough. I know I have done a good thing in helping someone have a child and a happy life but I think about them a lot."

Shabnum, 26, said text messages and photos from the parents of the child to whom she had given birth made her very happy – until they tailed off.The bill makes any such contact a criminal offence punishable by fines or imprisonment of up to two years "or something appropriate like that".

Within a week Nikki and Bobby Bains from Ilford, Essex, will fly to Gujarat, in India, to pick up their second child from the Akshanka clinic in Anand.

Their first, Daisy, was born to a surrogate mother nearly two years ago after "a 13-year struggle".
"It's very difficult to find surrogates in the UK. There are lots of delays and surrogates are very rare. We had a couple of bad experiences too," said Bobby, 46. "So we ended up with 10 attempts, all in India. It has cost around £80,000 in medical fees.

"We call Daisy Little Miss India. We are Sikh, the surrogate was Muslim, the egg donor was Hindu. So she encapsulates the whole country.

"No one can say we are exploiting anyone. They get paid the equivalent of 10 or 15 years' salary. At least you know the money goes to a good cause."

Even if they are saying they are not exploiting,and rather these mothers don't consider it as exploitation,in a straight thinking,are some people really taking advantage of the poor for their own benefit by spending money? Whatever it may be,the only good thing is that both parties are well satisfied and there are no problems. Let it go on like that in the future too.

Albania and Sex Trade

Albania was an economic ruin when it emerged 12 years ago from the ironfisted rule of communist dictator Enver Hoxha. High rates of poverty and unemployment, a crumbling infrastructure, and corrupt elected officials made the nation fertile ground for smuggling in drugs, weapons, and women. Albania’s government has estimated the number of Albanian women and girls trafficked to Western Europe and other Balkan countries between 1991 and 1999 for sexual exploitation at 100,000. Criminal organizations based in the capital Tirana and the cities of Vlora, Bekat, Shkodra, and Fier rely on speedboats for transporting victims across the Adriatic Sea to Italy, a trafficking stronghold. Albania’s northern regions were more sheltered from the trade thanks to the prevalence in rural communities of a traditional code that dictates revenge killings for traffickers who lay hold of a female family member. However, by the late 1990s, lack of economic opportunity had undermined even this traditional safeguard as thousands of Albanian men and boys went abroad to work. Today, trafficking victims come from all parts of Albania; in particular, from rural areas where poverty is higher, education levels lower, and familiarity with traffickers’ ploys less extensive

Albania not only supplies women and girls for the international sex trade, but also acts as a major hub through which women from countries further East are taken to Western European markets. Albanian women and girls are either lured by false promises of marriage or offers of legitimate employment or kidnapped to work as prostitutes. Ranging in age from 14 to 35, girls trafficked from Albania are among the youngest victims worldwide, with as many as 80 percent of them younger than 18, according to a 2000 Save the Children report. They are brought to work primarily in Italy as street prostitutes, the most dangerous and unpredictable form of prostitution. Some Albanian girls are trafficked to other countries such as Belgium, Greece, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. In Italy, according to a 2001 Save the Children report, Albanian pimps reportedly expect their teen-aged prostitutes to earn between $200-$550 a night. Most of the women never receive a cut of the money they make.

Foreign women and girls, the majority of whom are from Moldova and Romania, are also trafficked through Albania for sexual exploitation. Brought in via Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, or Macedonia, they are bought and sold in Albania before being sent to the port cities of Durres or Vlora for passage to Italy.

Albanian children, both boys and girls, are trafficked to Greece and Italy to beg, wash car windows, and deal in drugs. Most of those trafficked come from Albania’s ethnic Roma minority, a traditionally disadvantaged group. Often in exchange for a monthly stipend, very poor families give their children to traffickers, who take them across the border to Greece by foot or by boat to Italy to work as forced laborers. The children’s parents only receive a small fraction of what they earn, which may average almost $1,000 per month, according to the 2001 Save the Children report “Child Trafficking in Albania.”

After years of denying that trafficking was a problem, Albania has recently reversed course. Driving the bid for change is the country’s desire to enter the European Union — an ambition that could be undermined by international criticism of the government’s response to the trafficking problem. In 2001, Albania made trafficking in women and children a criminal offense and adopted a national plan to fight human trafficking. In conjunction with the National Action Plan, TV programs are broadcast to raise awareness about traffickers’ methods and the government has paired with NGOs to train teachers to educate students about the trafficking issue. Albanian police have patrolled the Adriatic since 2002 together with Italian law enforcement in a successful attempt to curb the speedboat traffic that ferries victims from Albania to Italy. Much work still remains for Tirana, however. Corruption among police and elected officials is high — a situation that can interfere with the successful prosecution of traffickers. Though prosecutions have increased, conviction and sentencing rates remain low.

Written by Sreejesh Kaipully

Real Exploitation of Women in Kenya

For the past five years, Achieng(not real name), a 35-year-old widow and mother of six, has sold fish on the Kenyan shores of Lake Victoria; like many women in the fish trade, Achieng often has to have sex with fishermen in order to get the best catch of the day, a system known in the local Luo language as 'jaboya'.

"When you are a woman and you want to get into the business of selling fish, you must be ready to lose your pride and use your body for bargaining," she told IRIN/PlusNews. "Being ready to give sex as and when it is needed by the fishermen... it guarantees your survival here on the beach."

'Jaboya' has long been associated with the high levels of HIV infection in Kenya's western Nyanza Province, where HIV prevalence is over 14.9 percent, double the national average of 7.4 percent. It is even higher among fishing communities. The Kenya HIV Prevention Response and Modes of Transmission Analysis 2009 reported that HIV prevalence among fishing communities stands at 30 percent, while an estimated 25 percent of all new infections in Nyanza are attributed to this group.

An estimated 27,000 women are involved in the fish trade in Nyanza either directly or indirectly, according to the Ministry of Fisheries.

Achieng says she is aware of the risks, but the immediate needs of her family override any concern she may have about contracting HIV.

"You know you can get HIV... but then you remember you have a family that needs to be provided for, and you say, let me die providing for them," she said.
According to Charles Okal, the provincial AIDS and sexually transmitted infections coordinator for Nyanza, while efforts to reach out to fishing communities with HIV prevention messages have begun to show results, the continued poverty of women means they remain vulnerable to 'jaboya'.

"Fish trade that goes along with sex-for-fish continues to be one of the greatest challenges in the prevention of HIV in Nyanza... There are still challenges which involve the economic and social vulnerabilities of the women involved in the trade," he said.

Economic empowerment

A recent donation of six boats to women's groups in Nyanza by the US Peace Corps shows some of the ways 'jaboya' can be addressed; the women are able to fish for themselves, eliminating dependence on fishermen.

"When you have nothing, those who have something must tell you to bend over backwards for them. Now we have boats and we will no longer be at anybody's mercy," Millicent Onyango, one of the beneficiaries of the US Peace Corps' "No Sex for Fish" project.

According to Okeyo Owuor, director of the Victoria Institute for Research on Environment and Development, which is part of the initiative, empowering women economically is key to ending the dangerous fish-for-sex trade. "These women need fish but they don't own any boat. This means they have to play along with whoever has the boat and these are men who will demand for sex before giving any fish. But when you empower them to own the boat, then they have the ultimate power to say no to sexual demands," he said.

"Six boats might look small but many such initiatives can make an impact in ending the sex-for-fish trade if replicated over time. It is important to start from somewhere," he added.

Many of the women trading in fish across Lake Victoria's landing sites have formed groups to help them save money to buy their own fishing equipment.

"We want to help ourselves by putting some of our savings aside so that when we have enough, we can buy our own boats and nets and help each other. So we will have nearly all women who are at the beaches own a boat either individually, or as a group," said Lillian Rajula, the leader of one such group.

According to Nyanza AIDS coordinator Okal, economic programmes must go hand in hand with other HIV prevention methods like the promotion of voluntary medical male circumcision, condom use and behaviour change communication. 

"Apart from the need to empower the women, behaviour change communication targeting men is important so that they look at the women as business partners and not sex partners; these kind of efforts are ongoing and are being embraced, albeit slowly," he said.

By Sreejesh Kaipully

A Breeze of Change in Saudi Arabia........

By Saudi Arabian law, women were, until recently, not permitted to compete in the Olympic Games.However, following the International Olympic Committee pressuring the Saudi Olympic Committee to send female athletes to the 2012 Summer Olympics, in June 2012 the Saudi Embassy in London announced this had been agreed.

There had been calls for Saudi Arabia to be barred from the Olympics until it permitted women to compete - notably from Anita DeFrantz, chair of the International Olympic Committee's Women and Sports Commission, in 2010.In 2008, Ali Al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, likewise called for Saudi Arabia to be barred from the Games, describing its ban on women athletes as a violation of the International Olympic Committee charter. Stating that gender discrimination should be no more acceptable than racial discrimination, he noted: "For the last 15 years, many international nongovernmental organizations worldwide have been trying to lobby the IOC for better enforcement of its own laws banning gender discrimination. [...] While their efforts did result in increasing numbers of women Olympians, the IOC has been reluctant to take a strong position and threaten the discriminating countries with suspension or expulsion.

Dalma Rushdi Malhas cpmpeted the 2010 Singapore Youth Olympics and won a bronze medal in equestrian.
The appearance of Saudi Arabia's first female Olympic athletes at the Games' opening ceremony prompted a heated online debate on Saturday, with some conservative Islamists denouncing the women as shameless but many praising them.

Wojdan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shaherkani, who is to compete in the +78kg judo category, and 800 metre runner Sarah Attar marched behind the men in their national delegation during the ceremony in London on Friday.
Conservative Muslim clerics in Saudi Arabia oppose women's sport, arguing that it is immodest and goes against their nature. That view was reflected in Twitter postings including one under a hashtag that would translate as "Olympic_Whores".

"One should not hesitate to describe their participation as shameful and a great sin," Khaled al-Jabri, whose Twitter profile listed him as a Saudi from Jeddah, wrote on Saturday in one of thousands of postings on the subject that ran in the hours after the ceremony.

"Whores of the Olympics...They want to run so that they intentionally fall down and reveal (their figures)," said a tweeter under the name @mloven2100, who identified himself as a Saudi.

"I'm proud of Saudi women's participation in the Olympics," wrote Fahad al-Enzi, a member of a prominent Saudi tribe whose profile listed him as from Riyadh.

A woman who identified herself as Safaa, a Saudi, tweeted: "Women walking behind the Saudi delegation is historic. Next we'll be carrying the flag and walking side by side, equal."

Before this year Saudi Arabia was one of three countries, alongside Brunei and Qatar, never to have sent female athletes to the Olympics. The latter two confirmed earlier this year that their delegations would include women.

Saudi Arabia reached an agreement on the participation of Shaherkani and Attar just two weeks ago in talks with the International Olympic Committee. Human rights groups had urged the IOC to ban the country from the Games unless it agreed to send women.

Riyadh's decision followed a series of cautious steps expanding women's rights over the past 18 months. King Abdullah, who has a reputation as a reformer, last year announced plans to let women vote in municipal council elections and join the consultative Shoura Council.

And this is a “Jasmine Revolution” which has brought a change of mind towards the women of the Country atleast identifying then as individuals rather than as a group who were downtrodden and weak without even having any basic Rights as a Human Being.Let this prevail all over the Middle East so that the Countries get a new address of Freedom for Women infront of the world.

Girl Molested in Public.......!!!!!

A teenaged girl was molested, groped at and beaten up, all in full public view, by a mob in Guwahati, triggering widespread protests in the state.

The protestors hung up the posters of the culprits in city thoroughfares even as an embarrassed police department is now working overtime to hunt down those involved in the crime. So far, four persons have been arrested while at least eight others are still at large.

The 17-year-old girl, who is pursuing studies in fashion designing in the national capital, was attacked when she was returning home after celebrating the birthday of her friend, a teenaged girl, at a bar. The girl was subjected to assault and molestation for nearly half an hour before being rescued by some passers-by.

The birthday girl had lost her ATM card and couldn’t settle the bills. So, they were evicted by the bar employees. But soon, she picked up a quarrel with the young men who accompanied her and started beating them up. "When the mob started building up, the four fled the place leaving behind the victim,”  as said by city senior superintendent of police (SSP) Apurba Jiban Barua.

The Assam State Commission for Women has taken suo motu cognisance of the case.

“We strongly condemn this heinous crime,” the Commission chairperson Meera Barooah said. A team of the National Commission for Women is scheduled to visit the state even as Congress president Sonia Gandhi has sought a report on the incident from the Pradesh Mahila Congress.

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi admitted that the law and order situation in Guwahati is deteriorating . He instructed the administration and police to monitor the bars, clubs, discos and hotels and raid them as and when required.

What is actually happening to India?the 33% reservation,the great culture etc are only seen in words,but in actual practice these are all forgotten and people are behaving like animals.The pledge saying “all Indians are my Brothers and Sisters” is seen only on National integration days or in schools,but this is not at all followed. This is an utmost shame to the country and what to say, we can only hope for a better tomorrow.


By Sreejesh K

KILLING GIRL CHILDREN IN INDIA..........

In the feel-happy planet that is India, where the most powerful politician is an Italy-born woman and where the newspapers are ecstatic over the appointment of an India-born woman as PepsiCo's CEO, there has emerged a news-spoiler that has not been greatly highlighted in the country's media.

This is surprising since the news is revolting and the Indian news channels are constantly in quest of sensational news items to hike up their television ratings. A few days before India's 60th Independence Day celebrations, government officials in Punjab, one of the wealthiest states of India and also the birthplace of Bhangra music, discovered dozens of female fetuses dumped in an unused well in a town called Patran.
A quack, formerly serving in the Indian army, and along with his wife, was running an illegal maternity clinic where, assisted by a team of nurses, he 'helped' expectant parents determine the sex of their fetuses and aborted the female ones if the parents so desired. 

The fetuses were secretly thrown in the well. Allegedly, this killing of would-be girls had been carried out for a number of years. The quack had established the clinic in 1987. It was only earlier this month when one of the nurses, upset over her salary, reported the matter to the authorities. The decomposed remains of placentas and fetuses were discovered in the well and the killings became public knowledge.

Killing female embryos is an unacknowledged practice in Indian society. Everyone knows it is a crime and perhaps morally wrong, too. There are many who do not fall for it, but still it is acceptable. Just be quiet about it, please.

It is also true that many Indians love their daughters as much as their sons, yet the birth of a girl is an undesirable occasion in many families. Girls are seen as a burden on the household, a bundle of shame, and a thankless responsibility. They are perceived as offspring who, unlike the sons, would not carry on the family's name. Instead, a great amount of money would have to be arranged for their wedding dowries, which would benefit the homes of their husband's families.

India is perhaps the only civilization that worships God in woman-form, too. That still doesn’t stop many countrymen from killing their own daughters. Earlier baby daughters were killed by smothering, making them lick poison, or simply by not feeding them. Last year in the month of August, again in Punjab, a newspaper highlighted the report of a girl child being abandoned on a highway by her parents.
India has started shining. Developments in medical technology are more accessible. It is easier to avoid guilt complex by an early detection of the sex of the fetus, thanks to ultrasound technology, and opting for abortion, if it is a girl, in a safe, clean, and clinical process.

It is illegal in India to determine the gender of the fetus of a pregnant woman. Unfortunately the practice is discreet and willing doctors are easy to contact through word-of-mouth publicity.
However, in March 2006, a doctor and his assistant were sentenced to two years in jail for revealing the sex of a female fetus and then consenting to abort it. This was the first time medical professionals were jailed in such a case.

India is a great civilization and a confident country that aspires to become one of the leading nations of the world. It will never achieve this dream until it learns to appreciate the value of a woman as the same of a man.

The good news is that a willing acceptance of daughters is not impossible to arrive at in this conservative country. The newspaper that reported the baby girl was abandoned on the highway AS MENTIONED that a poor couple adopted the baby. The couple happily boasted of already having four biological daughters!

By Sreejesh Kaipully

Early Marriage: A Real Social Evil.......

Early marriage affects women's health status adversely. A vast number of girls are married at the teenage. It leads to teenage pregnancy and various physiological problems. In rural India almost 60 per cent of girls are married before they are 18. Nearly 60 per cent of married girls bear children before they are 19. Almost one third of all babies are born with low birth weight. Thus, young girls are introduced to the sexual life and to the reproduction processes at the teenage.Because of malnutrition, over burden of work illiteracy, ignorance of the sex-behavior these pregnant girls take high risk of life. Around 10 to 15% of the annual births are from these adolescent mothers. However, most of their babies suffer from malnutrition, under weight and risk of mortality. In India, women have on an average 8-9 pregnancy and they spend around 80% of their reproductive years in pregnancy and lactation. Study shows that in the low income group pregnant women have deficiency of 1,100 calories and lactating women 1,000 calories.

Women of the lower socio-economic groups gain only around 3-5 kgs during pregnancy, which is far less than the required weight. Anemia in pregnancy accounts directly 15 to 20% of all material deaths in India. The maternal-mortality according to official report, is 400 to 500 per 1, 00,000 births. However, this figure is as high as 1,000 to 1,200 to 1,200 in some rural areas. Again, more than 71% and 29% of the deliveries in the rural and urban areas took place without trained personnel (NPPW, 1988). In most of the rural areas, Medical Termination of pregnancy services is not available. Besides, women are not aware about the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 that has made abortion legal. Hence, illegal abortions by incompetent persons continue, resulting in abortion-related mortality and morbidity as serious problems.

Harmful effects of early marriage:
Early marriage can cause severe problems like the following:

• Psychological and emotional stress like forced sexual relations, denial of freedom and personal development as household chores now become a priority.
• Denial of personal development and education.
• Maturity levels become an issue as the little girl is now expected to play the role of a mother.
• Girl children undergo severe health problems like pregnancy and childbirth.
• Girl brides are also involved in early childhood care.
• Threat to contracting sexually transmitted diseases increases when girl children are exposed to such an environment.
• As girl children are still vulnerable and submissive, they can be subject to the atrocities of domestic violence and abandonment.
• Mental and emotional stress in girl brides is high because they are not old enough to cope with maternal, marital or in law issues.

Early marriage of girls and boys impairs the realization and enjoyment of virtually every one of their rights. The imposition of a marriage partner on children or adolescents who are in no way ready for married life, and whose marriage will deprive them of freedom, opportunity for personal development, and other rights including health and well-being, education, and participation in civic life, nullifies the meaning of the CRC’s core protections for those concerned. Unless measures are taken to address early marriage, it will continue to be a major stumbling block to the achievement of human rights. This Digest is intended merely as a starting-point, drawing attention to a practice that has been neglected by both women’s and children’s rights campaigners in recent decades. It is hoped that it will provide an incentive for a campaign to prevent early marriage and end the silent misery of millions of girls in  many countries around the world, to open up new horizons for them, and contribute to the development of policies, programmes and advocacy to bring this about.

By Sreejesh K