Showing posts with label WOMEN ISSUES. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WOMEN ISSUES. Show all posts

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Acid Attack

Acid Attacks (One form of violence against women and children)--> 

Acid violence is the deliberate use of acid to attack another human being. The victims of acid violence are overwhelmingly women and children, and attackers often target the head and face in order to maim, disfigure and blind. Acid has a devastating effect on the human body, often permanently blinding the victim and denying them the use of their hands. As a consequence, many everyday tasks such as working and even mothering are rendered extremely difficult if not impossible.Acid attacks rarely kill but cause severe physical, psychological and social scarring, and victims are often left with no legal recourse, limited access to medical or psychological assistance, and without the means to support themselves. It is not possible to provide the support that survivors require through a single intervention like a cleft palate surgery or the construction of a water-well. In order to rebuild their lives, acid survivors need long-term access to a holistic programme of medical support, rehabilitation, and advocacy that can only be provided by a local organisation.

Acid attacks are a worldwide phenomenon that are not restricted to a particular race, religion or geographical location. They occur in many countries in South-East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, the West Indies and the Middle East, and there is anecdotal evidence of attacks in other regions. In many countries acid attacks constitute a hidden form of violence against women and children that often goes unreported.

Indian Scenario: 

Stories of women suffering from acid burns abound and span diverse backgrounds; Hindu, Muslim and Christian, some poor, some affluent. Reasons of acid attacks are also different like - as part of sexual violence, as part of punishment and in some cases when women refuses to marriage or opposes the sexual advances by men. 

Victims has to face many problems like social bio-cots, not enough employment opportunity, to avoid pubic hatred they have to cover their faces all the time, financial problems to cure the acid burn because curing is a long term process. In summary, they become completely dependent on family.

Despite Supreme Court ruling, response of govt is not very effective. Their attitude of "just pass the buck" has compounded the misery of the victims. It certainly lacks the strong political will and decisive action by government.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Child Marriage

The Unicef report said that child marriage is pervasive in South Asia even though most countries in the region have a legal marrying minimum age of 18. Before the age of 18, 46 per cent of South Asian girls are married, while 18 per cent are married before age 15. The highest rate of child marriage was in Bangladesh, where two-thirds of girls are married before age 18, followed by India, Nepal and Bangladesh.

The problem is rooted in poverty and social norms, with parents marrying their daughters early “because they see it as the ‘done thing’ and because they fear the social sanctions and moral judgments they would face if they refused to follow this practice,” the report said

How to counter?

1. Education
2. Financial Support
3. Support Network
4. Birth Registration


http://m.thehindu.com/news/international/world/46-of-south-asian-girls-marry-by-18-unicef/article6403721.ece/?secid=2780



Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Women Issues

Unequal status tells on women’s nutrition - The Hindu

A new working paper by economists Diane Coffey, a PhD candidate at the Office of Population Research at Princeton University; Reetika Khera of the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi; and Mr. Spears has shown that the younger daughters-in-law in a rural joint family have shorter children on average. While this is no longer the typical Indian family, it provides a rare econometric measure of “social status.” Sure enough, the younger daughters-in-law “report having less say in a range of household decisions; they spend less time outside the home on a normal day than [the older] daughters-in-law; and, they have lower body mass index [BMI] scores than their [older] counterparts,” the researchers find, using official National Family Health Survey data.