Today is Universal Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. This is the 21st century when measured in terms of prosperity, technology and economic equality of the sexes. All of these have seen a distinct enhancement.
And the same holds true about the issue of crime against women. The difference is only that what was an institutionalized form of felony yesterday has become less formal today.
The point is that its existence just cannot be denied. And precisely due to this reason it must not even be ignored.
The worst form which has been present since time immemorial has been the dagger of sexual exploitation which has often been used. For instance in times of war, history has witnessed rape as a form of assault against females. And this is just one small example.
Flesh trade where young girls mired in poverty are being pushed into is that form of organized crime which still prevails despite serious efforts to uproot it.
The fact is that no matter what form violence may take like domestic violence, gender bias, dowry torture, bride burning, sati, acid attacks, pregnancy torture, each of it is grave enough.
The United Nations has defined gender-based violence quite broadly. The General Assembly, defines it as "any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life."
The overt means adopted appear more prominently than the covert methods. But it is clear that the latter has been subjugated to the background because if the explicit has not been dealt with, how can one hope to cope with the implicit?
However the furtive matter is more dangerous because the object of crime then has no means to prove the same in a court of law. Unless she deliberately hurts herself to prove to the world that she too has been a victim.
Yes, the subject that I would like to conclude my article with is that of trying to highlight mental torture as well.
It is important to draw attention to this too along with the oft-spoken about crimes. This is because the strength of the former is just as much as that of the latter.
Keeping in mind, the limitation of space and time, I would like to end by saying that it is high-time that the victimized woman changes.
Fragility thy name was never woman.
Power and smartness thy name has to be!
There is little choice left now but to change. But the same needs to begin through introspection. About the causes that lead to violence against women; acts which are not just perpetrated by men, but also show woman as being an equally malevolent enemy of a woman.
The structure of violence can be dismantled only once ‘human’ beings unite. And fighting gender violence need not be a fight limited for the female sex to take up or just directed at the male sex.
Social recognition must acquire a new shape and the battle starts from here.
The war has to be won!
(The views expressed by the author in the blog are his/her own)