Own Your Body/ Aapka Shareer Aapki Jaageer

Amba Dalmia Women Empowerment Cell
(Ajmer Adult Education Association Office, Kanta Marwah Bhawan,Vidyut Marg, Shastri Nagar Extension, Ajmer)

Concept

The body remains the major site of exploitation as far as women are concerned – from sexual abuse and harassment to domestic violence; from the glamour industry to the selective abortion of female foetuses. When we speak of empowerment we need to pay greater heed to the female body as she negotiates patriarchal institutions and customs from infancy to old age.

Rajasthan is a tradition-bound, feudal state and statistics show that women are still at a great disadvantage here whether it is the field of education, health or economy. But the inequity is not confined to villages and the under-privileged as some would like to believe. It cuts across class, caste and the rural-urban divide. In 1990s, for instance, our city, Ajmer, was rocked by a scandal when a local newspaper broke the story that some men had been coercing and blackmailing schoolgirls into sex; taking pictures and making videos of the act. Almost two decades later we still need to ask the question why such an incident happened. They were city girls being educated in prestigious institutions. (To read more about the incident go to http://www.anuradhamarwah.com/search/label/forthcoming)
We also need to be confident that such an incident will not happen again.

In fact, with the proliferation of the glamour industry in the country the likelihood of such exploitation has only increased. If options have increased for women; crime against women has multiplied as well. Our socio-legal system is ill-prepared for the onslaught of globalization and over the last few years has repeatedly shown itself to be incapable of protecting the weak from the unscrupulous. For example, does it ensure the safety of young women on the roads? Can a girl dress as she likes even in the city?

The answer would be in the negative for both questions and the existing state of affairs should be a cause of grave concern to all of us. There is the fundamentalist school of thought that believes that all problems of society can be solved by locking women away from benefits of modernity and pushing them back into the nineteenth century. This is a knee-jerk reaction to globalization and by definition inhuman and untenable. Also, what passes for tradition in such discourses is hardly women-friendly – dowry, domestic violence being cases in point.
For women to take their rightful place as citizens of a free democracy in the twenty-first century we need support structures and help groups not prisons. We need to re-build institutions, re-interpret laws and social customs so that they include the new needs and demands of women. Amba Dalmia Women Empowerment Cell is a small step in this direction by AAEA that has been working for the empowerment of the under-privileged since 1971.

Starting the cell has become possible for us due to a private donation made to AAEA by Mrs. Manju Kapur Dalmia. The cell commemorates the memory of her daughter Amba Dalmia.


The Scope of Own Your Body/ Aapka Shareer Aapki Jaageer programme

We plan to focus on the body – not because being a woman is only biological; but because the body needs to be recognised as the primary site of struggle. It is what Nature gives us by way of the gift of life and it is what society continuously denies us by challenging our ownership of our own bodies in several devious ways. Ownership of the body is crucial to understanding and implementing the following:
a. No to all kinds of sexual abuse
b. Anti-sexual harassment policy in the workplace.
c. Equality in love and sex for the adolescent girl
d. Empowered negotiations with glamour and beauty
e. Women’s rights in marital sex
f. No to all kinds of domestic violence
g. Reproductive Rights and decisions about motherhood
h. Reproductive health
i. Menopause and care of the ageing female body

Target Group

For almost 40 years AAEA has been working in Ajmer. Our target group would include
a. Schoolgirls
b. College students
c. Field workers in various organisations
d. Women working in offices
e. Women from Khadim Mohalla, Harijan Basti and all other localities where we already have a relationship.
f. Men and Boys

Methodology

To achieve our objectives we plan to
a. Hold public lectures
b. Organise short term training programmes for adolescent girls and women
c. Run a library and resource centre in the AAEA office
d. Make provisions for legal and medical counselling in the AAEA office
e. Conduct a survey in various offices and organisations in Ajmer to determine the number that have implemented an anti-sexual harassment policy.
f. Conduct gender sensitization workshops for men and boys
g. Generate resource material
h. Network with other NGOs working in the field.

The programme would be planned for 6 months at a time. Our plan from April – September 2009, the first phase, includes:
a. Starting the library and resource centre in the AAEA office (April-May)
b. Organizing a three-day self-defence training programme for women field workers from NGOs in June-July (Resource persons: Vishakha, Jaipur)
c. Starting an outreach programme in girls’ schools in Ajmer (July-September)

Anuradha Marwah

Secretary, AAEA