INVITATION to Join Consortium for Women Rights

[Guest guest]

Dear Friend,

 

To commemorate the centenary year of women liberation movement, Durbar Mahila

Samanwaya Committee (Durbar) has decided to celebrate the occasion through a

month long program, stretching from 19th February to 23rd March 2011.The program

will be held In West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa & Delhi.

This program is centering around women’s rights & development. It would

highlight ‘Issues’ focusing women’s struggle to achieve their rights,

dignity and equity.

We expect large number of participants, who will be attending this program

representing different walks of life. For a media house or for an advertising

agency, the scope is wide open to get involved with this program. Media House

can take responsibility to engage in publicity work. We seek your partnership

and can discuss on the promotional rights of the events. There are options to

act as Executive or associate partner based on your interests and rights will be

reserved accordingly.

 

To celebrate this movement, Durbar is keen to develop a consortium of right

based organizations working in the field of Health, Development, Micro credit

etc. who are engaged in establishing rights of women and who will be responsible

to organize the entire event including its feed back mechanism. The proposed

event is an ingenious approach, which would provide an opportunity to get

involved into women rights’ advancement related issues & challenges.

 

With regards,

 

Ms. Padma Majumder

e-mail: <sonagachi@...>

Date for proposed Consortium: 25th September, 2010

Time: 03:00 P.M

Venue: 12/5 Nilmani Mitra Street, Kolkata-700006, West Bengal

Email: durbar.utsav2011@...

Contact person: Ms. Mitra Mukherjee 096741 62093

Concept Note for the month long program on women's movement- steered through

DMSC

 

This is the centenary year of Women’s Day. The first large scale mobilization

of women that took place on 19th March of 1911 in the streets of many European

countries is considered a landmark event in the history of women mobilization

and rights movement. Since last hundred years many large scale demonstration and

procession has taken place in many parts of the world to raise voices and to

press demand on various issues pertaining to women's development and empowerment

including human and citizenship rights of women.

However still there are countries and places where women's basic human rights

are denied and their access to life and livelihood option is severally

restricted. Rights to education for the girl child are yet to be established as

a fundamental right across many countries.

Even today girls are penalized for joining school in Afghanistan. In many parts

of Africa and France the genital mutilation is still in practice which is

endorsed overtly and covertly by the social and political outfits. In many

countries women are forced to cover their whole body and face in order to

seclude themselves from the rest of the society. However there are stories of

success and achievements too e.g. in many countries women have established their

voting rights, including their rights to contest in the democratic process.

Women's right movement succeeded in establishing equal pay for equal work. In

India the state authorities have taken various important steps by bringing new

policies and enacting legislations in order to empower women and to establish

their citizenship rights.

Women in India gained voting rights long before many other European Countries

dared to implement those provisions. We have legislations to prevent

discriminatory payment practices against women labor.

There is a law to prevent domestic violence. To ensure women’s participation

both in the local government as well as in the parliament a Bill has recently

been passed in the Indian parliament.

Although our society is changing and accepting many of the basic rights of

women, lot needs to be done. There are many social and structural barriers that

need to be addressed through adopting appropriate strategies and through

developing broad platforms.

Even though the state has initiated and enacted many pro women legislation and

policies including implementation of several developmental programs, the age old

social norms, values and practices appear to be the major obstacles in achieving

the desired outcome. The Government has to enact laws to stop women foeticide is

one such example. Despite of having law to prohibit early marriage, the National

survey shows that the rate of child marriage is as high as 50% of all the

marriages held in the country.

The incidence of domestic violence remained high in Indian families. Our

societal norms and practices are in support of dowry system.

Indian society still finds it uncomfortable to accept widow

remarriage. Even today various religious and social outfits like “Khap

Panchayat†implement their barbaric rules and promote it vehemently in the

name of 'honor killing'. In many parts of the country particularly in remote

villages, a section of powerful groups ignoring the democratic norms legislative

policies and practices carry out 'village courts' (Kangroo courts) in many parts

of the country through which they issue verdict and sermon which often

victimizes women and women belonging to low caste and class background in

particular.

Though there are number of health and other intervention program in place, we

have failed to reduce the incidence of maternal mortality which is shamelessly

high in our country in comparison to many economically less prosperous countries

in the globe. Promulgation of stringent laws has failed to curb sexual

harassment including rape.

Many of these policies and laws has failed to establish human dignity and rights

of women.

However we hope that our deeper understanding and better comprehension on women

related issues vis-à-vis the impact of various social and structural

interventions would help strengthening the ongoing women's rights movement. The

process of collectivization and development of partnership including adoption of

combination of strategies would help women to establish their rights. This is

extremely important for women belonging to marginalized communities in our

country who would be able to regain dignity, equity and social justice.

What is Mela and Our past experience

Mela is a mechanism to influence and instigate awareness among the people of

different walks of life. In our country, Melas are organized all around the year

on the occasion of different festivals.

However we will use this mass communication approaches adopting Mela as a

mechanism to create space and to spread awareness on issues of relevance. A Mela

serves the purpose to bring people together providing a space to engage in

discourses in a relaxed and casual manner, Mela is having a commercial aspect

too where people buy handicrafts and other products produced by women self help

groups.

This particular Mela we have planned to organize on the occasion of the

centenary of women's liberation will provide an ambience and opportunity to draw

attention of masses on issues pertaining to women's rights and allied issues.

People who usually do not attend academic discussion and discourses find it

comfortable to get exposed to socially relevant issues. Our past experience in

organizing similar Mela proved to be very effective and useful mechanism in

influencing people's mindset and to change age old attitude and practices

towards other community member.

Brief description of the previous successful melas (large gathering) in Durbar:

Durbar has successfully organized 3 such melas in 2001(Millennium Milan Mela),

2002(Peace festival), 2004(12 years’ celebration of Durbar).

Millennium Milan Mela: This mela was held in Calcutta from March 3 to 6, 2001,

at the Salt Lake Stadium, Kolkata. Several well-known women’s rights activists

had been participated in this mela. The mela was organized around seven sub

themes, and each sub theme was addressed through workshops, seminars, debates,

cultural performances and exhibitions. The mela opened on the morning of March 3

to a spray of Holi (an Indian festival) colours, the release of pigeons

signifying peace and a colourful repertoire of songs and dances performed by

Komol Gandhar, the cultural wing of DMSC.

At the opening ceremony, the women declared the 3rd March as the International

Sex Workers’ Rights day. The mela also marked the formation of the regional

network of sex workers in Asia pacific region. The Millennium Milan Mela sought

to celebrate the struggle of sex workers for their rights, their small and big

victories and their solidarity with women’s movements, both nationally and

internationally.

The mela also sought to bring together women groups representing marginalized

women which include socially disadvantaged and stigmatized groups, indigenous

and marginalized folk artists, lesbians, transsexuals and transgender (hijra)

people. The mela was organized in an open ground, we organized several panel

discussions, debates, workshops and many other cultural events e.g. song and

mimes, theatre, puppet shows and folk arts etc through which issues related to

women rights were highlighted. The Mela was opened to general people who came

and joined many discussion sessions in addition to enjoying various cultural

events. During this four days Mela around 45,000 people representing different

walks of life attended this Mela.

Shanti Utsav(Peace Festival): A carnival was celebrated on the eve of

International Sex Workers’  day Mela, between the 3rd and the 9th March 2002

at Yuba Bharati Krirangan, Salt Lake City, Kolkata with a view to convey the

massage of peace and harmony across the world. The mela provided the space for

lively discussions on issues of individuals freedom of choice and liberty.

Another focus of the Mela was around issues of rights  and development of

marginalized and minority communities.

The mela attracted a huge number of enthusiastic individuals and groups, apart

from sex workers’ organizations, sexual minority groups and other allied

organizations.

Some of the key themes that were discussed at the mela were on the status and

rights of sex workers, on the role of the state regarding the development of

marginalized communities, issues of sexual minorities, the role of women in the

health sector development as well as on the much debated anti- trafficking

initiatives. Around fifty thousands participants came down to this Mela ground

and share their views on issues of women and sex workers rights.

Sonagachi Ek Yug (12 years’ celebration of Durbar): DMSC has organized the

mega celebration of Sonagachi Ek Yug (12 year celebration) of Sonagachi Project

in collaboration with the National Network of sex workers starting from 21st

February to 3rd March, 2004. DMSC organized several cultural events at the Mela

ground.

In addition to that DMSC organized small scale events of similar nature in no

less than 20 sites in the state of West Bengal, to mark the success of 12 years

of the Sonagachi project. During this programme in addition to commoner a good

number of policy makers e.g. Member of Parliament, Mayor of Corporation,

ministers representing different Govt. departments attended this program. A

large number of intellectuals and academicians also took part in the said

program.

During this week long program around 75 thousands peoples from the mainstream

society attended this Mela. Based on our past experience and successes of these

Mela we decided to

adopt this strategy to celebrate centenary of women's movement.

Who we are? (Background of the organization)

We have planned to celebrate the centenary year of women liberation movement by

organizing a month long program in collaboration with various women and civil

society organization scheduled to start from 19th February 2011 and will

continue till 21st March 2011. We are in a process to develop partnership with

media houses and academic institutions. As planned the program is designed to

focus on 'women' and their issues. We would like to bring forward issues of

marginalized communities with a view to strengthen their ongoing struggle to

establish their rightful position in the society respecting their emotional,

aspiration issues and their ongoing movement and the process of victimization.

We would like to celebrate our success and side by side we are keen to focus on

emerging newer challenges, in addition to that we are interested on the issues

of positioning of women in the broader development and political arena.

Description of the proposed programme

We have planned to organize a Mela, a film festival and a series of discussion

and debating session that would be conducted in collaboration with number of

academic institutions in our country. Our program will not be confined only in

the state of West Bengal but would also take part in other states namely Delhi,

Orissa and Bihar.

There are three major components of the program-

1) A 'open ground Fair' will be organized to celebrate hundred years of

Women’s liberation movement. There will be a number of stalls through which

products and various informative materials would be sold and shared. The Mela

ground will provide an opportunity for participants to present and project their

organizational issues and experiences. It would be used as a meeting place for

participants not just to share information but their feelings and emotional

challenges. In addition to that there will be many interesting 'sporting events'

with lot of fun and frolic  to be organized in the mela ground.

Cultural Program

A) There would be 5 days long cultural extravaganza in the Mela ground, which

will be open for all. As planned, the cultural event will start from evening to

till 10 p.m. All different cultural activities what would be undertaken will

focus on women's issues and challenges and would be participated by the renowned

cultural troupes (Dance, Drama etc.) representing West Bengal and Bangladesh.

A special effort would be made to focus on the folk arts of Bengal like Chhou,

Natua, Bhawaiya, Gambhira etc. During these 5 days of the fair we expect more

than 50,000 participants representing different walks of life and all across the

state. We hope that they would enjoy various activities in the Mela ground in

addition to getting sensitized towards women's rights issues. During this period

one more cultural event will be held in Delhi in addition to a series of

discussion and debating sessions which will be organized in number of University

campuses in Delhi.

This would allow intellectuals of the city to take part in all relevant debates

and discussions.

Film Festival: Centering women's right a seven days long film festival will

be organized in the city of Kolkata in collaboration with Film Institutes and

Cine Club society. This film festival will focus on 'women's issues, and

challenges as perceived by them'. Each show will be preceded by a discussion

session that would be attended by the renowned film and media personalities.

2) Discussions, debating sessions and workshops would be organized in

collaboration with various educational institution and universities in West

Bengal and in other states with active participation of the students,

academicians, intellectuals and others. Some of the tentative issues to be

discussed are:

Envisioning a paradigm shift in the value base of 'rape' and rape victim.

Strategizing Economic opportunities to House wife/Home maker?

Breaking the shackles of religious hierarchy to allow women to act as priestess.

To combat the dowry system should we call to impose reverse dowry?

How to bring sense of equity and equality after marriage?

Is it possible and necessary to bring legislation to empower women in domestic

sector?

Why only woman has to carry the symbol of marriage? What about men?

Why the poor and 'lower caste women' are invisible in the mainstream women’s

movement?

Positioning women in policy making bodies- How and when?

3) Capacity building program would be held simultaneously what will be attended

by representatives fro marginalized women community and their organization.

Conclusion

Through this initiative we would be able to unveil various social and political

issues what brings disrespect or indignity to the life and livelihood of women.

We hope through this partnership and endeavor a broad national level network and

alliance could be forged.

Dialogue and discussion sessions would help better strategizing and promoting

women's rights and development program capacity building program designed fro

the marginalized communtiy would strengthen women’s ability to ‘question’

ongoing values, norms, social practices. We like to champion the call that

women’s rights are human rights. To help promote rights of marginalized women

and to enhance their capability, we decided to focus on various social and

structural barriers and mechanism to promote social justice.

 

Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee,

12/5 Nilmoni Mitra Street,

Kolkata -700006

West Bengal

www.durbar.org