Experts plead for empowering, involving men to end gender-based violence

By A K Sahoo

BHUBANESWAR, NOV 2: Experts on Tuesday pleaded for empowering and involving men to end gender-based violence. The experts said since the perpetrators are males, efforts need to be made to understand their psychology and behavior so as to check the atrocities against women.

In fact, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data of 2020 puts Odisha as the second highest in the rate of crimes against women and girls in the country. The gender-based atrocities reached an alarming high during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“In such situation, it is high time we took measures to empower and involve men to achieve gender equality. As basically, the perpetrators are males, efforts need to be made to understand their psychology and behavior and involve them in the process of eradicating sexual gender-based violence (SGBV),” said Professor Aparajita Chowdhury, Vice-Chancellor of Rama Devi Women’s University.

She was addressing an audience at the learning-cum-experience sharing programme on ‘Quick Impact Project’ to mitigate Sexual Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) through community awareness and support system organised by the Centre for Youth and Social Development (CYSD) and the Centre for Gender Studies, RD University here on Tuesday.

The Quick Impact Project is an initiative to eradicate the SGBV through community participation. It is being implemented in three tribal-dominated districts – Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar and Koraput.

The VC announced that the CYSD and the RD University will have a long-term coordinated action-research project on gender-based violence in the state.

“Crimes against women have increased despite the fact that legal provisions are in place and there have been a lot of efforts at community, state, national and international levels,” said Shri Jagadananda, mentor and co-founder, CYSD.

In such situation the CYSD has been emphacising on the importance of preparing community cadres including both men and women to address the gender-based violence at local levels.

He emphasized on the need to reach out to the victims and measures to ensure that they can have easy access to facilities – like one-stop centres (OSCs); Swadhar Grehs; Mahila O Shishu Desk at district headquarters police stations and Ujjawala Homes – which are meant to prevent and address gender-based violence. He also underlined the need for sensitive counseling of sexually-assaulted women and girls.

CYSD’s gender coordinator Uppali Mohanty raised concern over under-reporting of cases of violence due to lack of awareness and psychological pressure.

Many women have applied for divorce during the pandemic period and most are from well-to-do families, said Dr Minati Behera, Chairperson, Odisha State Commission for Women. So, gender-based violence is prevalent among all strata of society. She urged upon the women to raise their voice to end violence.

Ms Bishaka Bhanja, member of National Alliance of Women’s Organisations (NAWO), Odisha Chapter, shed light on the need to transform the gendered terminologies.

“There should be equal distribution of power and responsibility between boys and girls and it needs to start from family,” she added.

Ms Mousumi Kundu, Deputy Director of New Delhi-based organisation Program BreakThrough, analysed atrocities against women from a psychological perspective and said gender-based discrimination and violence is deeply ingrained in our psyche.

A number of mechanisms are in place for promotion of economic empowerment of women. However, the perspective of gender equality needs to be integrated into these mechanisms, said Ms Alka Narang, Gender Specialist, UNDP, New Delhi.

Among others, Prof. (Dr.) Jyotirmayee Acharya, Dept. of Gender Studies, RD University spoke on the occasion. Community leaders from Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar and Koraput districts shared their experience and challenges on how they are working to prevent gender-based violence in their respective areas.

Aliva Mohanty of RD University proposed the vote of thanks.

The experts made the following recommendations to address violence against women

• Need to strengthen the system of psycho-social counselling and create a sensitive support system at various levels for the victims of sexual violence
• Adequate provision of beds, dedicated counseling spaces and rescue vehicles at the One Stop Centres (OSCs)
• Proper mechanism to help the survivors reach out to institutional facilities
• Building mechanism to stop child marriage
• Provision at the Swadhar Grehs and OSCs to ensure that the violence survivors get immediate medical aid. The medical system should be on alert to deal with emergency cases
• Proper training for the government frontline workers like the Anganwadi workers, who are the first point of contact for the survivors
• Auto location tracking of all calls received from the victims needs to be mandated to ensure that the help-lines can reach out to the survivors
• Adequate budget allocation for smooth functioning of the existing institutional mechanisms

==