Celebration of centenary year of Women’s Day! - DMSC Kolkata

[Guest guest]

 

Dear friends,

 

Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC) is a community based organization of, for and by the sex workers based in India. DMSC for the last one decade has been running HIV/AIDS targeted intervention program in 48 red light districts including the WHO acclaimed ‘Sonagachi Project’ as well as in street settings covering a population of over 40,000 sex workers and 100000 clients. At present DMSC represents 65000 sex-workers (Male, Female & Transgender) and is active in identifying and challenging the underlying socio-structural factors that help perpetuate stigma and material deprivation and social exclusion of sex-workers. DMSC is explicit about its political objective to establish the rights of sex workers as well as marginalized communities in our country.

This year we on behalf of DMSC have decided to celebrate hundred years of Women's Liberation Movement. As part of our endeavor, we are going to organize two months long program which includes open air Mela, a week long film festival and various cultural events to high light women's rights and other relevant issues. The concept note and program activities are with the mail below.

 

We seek your active participation in the afore mentioned event.

 

Thanking you.

 

Ms. Padma Mazumder

Convenor

 

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 have 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 are a women organization and have been operating in the state of West Bengal since last 15 years. We are committed to organize women and specifically marginalized women to help promote their basic human and citizenship rights. We have been to a large extent successful in raising hope for the socially marginalized and stigmatized sex workers following a combination of strategies and activities to build their self esteem and organizational capacity. We are active in influencing policy level issues through which we try to influence the attitude and practices of the main stream society through advocacy and lobbying. The sex workers community is now in a position to raise their voices and to demand their social and political rights and due entitlements. Today Durbar is not only fighting for the rights of the sex workers but has provided a forum to help raise voices of women belonging to marginalized communities which includes domestic workers, construction workers, fisher women and tribal women.

 

Description of the proposed programme

We have planned to celebrate the centenary year of women liberation movement by organizing a two months long program in collaboration with various women and civil society organization scheduled to start from 08th January 2011 and will continue till 08th 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.

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.

Month long program on women's movement- steered through DMSC

From 08.01.11 to 09.03.11

Program Activities

 

Date

Day

Activities

Participants

Invited guests

venue

08.01.11

Saturday (Afternoon)

A long procession would be held starting from Vidyasagar Statue, College Street

Representatives from Women organizations, Self Help Groups, Civil society organization and representatives from marginalized communities.

Renowned female activists, Ministry of WCD, Head of women commission, West Bengal.

 

4 - 7pm

Inauguration ceremony

Representatives from Women organizations, Self Help Groups, Civil society organization and representatives from marginalized communities.

Chief Minister of West Bengal (WB) and Uttar Pradesh, State Helath Minister, Minister of Education, Amartya Sen (Nobel Laureate)

Star Auditorium in Kolkata

In between 08.01.11 to 08.03.11

 

Debating session / seminar / conference

(Total Number : 17)

Students, teachers and representatives from civil society organizations including representatives from marginalized communities.

Academicians, Intellectuals of Kolkata, which includes Dean and Vice Chancellors of several universities. Renowned Artists, Film Directors, Spiritual leaders, representatives from UN agencies. Few academicians from foreign universities eg. Yale, Stanford, Cornel, UCLA, UPENN will also attend.

In Indian Educational Institutes of West Bengal which includes Calcutta and Jadavpur and North Bengal university in addition to other academic institutions in and around Kolkata, Siliguri, Burdwan.

 

22.01.11to 23.01.11

Saturday to Sunday

Sports

Children of sex workers, domestic workers representative from different civil society organizations, CBOs, NGOs.

Minister of Sports, Govt. of Jharkhand, MLAs and MPs, Local counselor.

Ranchi and Jamshedpur, Jharkhand.

26.01.11to 27.01.11

Wednesday to Thursday

Mela at Medinipur Town

The Mela is open to all.

Students of Colleges and Universities.

District Magistrate, Local MP, MLA, Vice Chancellor and Dean of Vidyasagar University and Medical College.

Medinipur Town

28.01.11

Friday

Felicitation of Folk artists, Sports personalities and women entrepreneurs of the State.

Representative of Women organizations, sports personalities and civil society organizations.

P.K. Banerjee, Dola Banerjee, Jhulon Goswami, Chuni Goswami, Sailen Manna, Prosun Banerjee and Sourav Ganguly

Eastern Jonal Cultural Center (Purbasa), Salt Lake, Kolkata

30.01.11

Sunday

Sit & draw, competition

Children of sex workers, domestic workers and construction workers.

MP, MLA and Jilla Parishad Pradhan

To be held in 7 District Head Quarters in West Bengal

01.02.11to 02.02.11

Tuesday -Wednesday

Football Tournament

Local inhabitants, representatives from civil society organizations

Hon'ble Minister of Tribal Welfare, Govt. of WB, District Magistrate, MP, MLA

Amlasole, West Midnapore, WB

4.2.10

 

Art Camp

It would be open to all.

Jogen Chowdhury, Elina Bhowmik, Prakash Karmakar, Subrata Gangapadhay, Subhaprasanna.

Kolkata

05.02.11 to 06.02.11

Saturday to Sunday

Charity Football / Cricket match

Renowned players of the State / Country.

Minister of Sports of the respective State, District Magistrate,  MPs,  MLAs

Karnataka / Maharastra

08.02.11 to 14.02.11

Sunday to Tuesday

Mela

The Mela is open to all.

Representative from different civil society organization, CBOs, NGOs, Students of Colleges and Universities would also attend.

Rituparno Ghosh, Rituparna Sengupta, Principal of SRTI, Rudraprasad Sengupta, Usha Ganguly, Badal Sarkar, Konkona Sen Sharma.

Sradhananda Park, Kolkata, WB

12.02.11 to 16.02.11

Saturday to Wednesday

Film Festival followed by discussion at the venue.

Audience of the film [Peoples from different walks of life.]

Shabana Azmi, Rituparno Ghosh, Rituparna Sengupta, Usha Ganguly, Badal Sarkar, Konkona Sen Sharma, Rahul Bose, Aparna Sen, Satarupa Sanyal,  Director of Nandan, Arijit Dutta (Priya Entertain), Representatives from film studies of Jadavpur

Star theatre, Nandan 2

18.02.11 to 19.02.11

Friday to Saturday

Sports

Children of sex workers, representative from different civil society organizations.

Minister of Sports, Govt. of Bihar, MLAs and MPs, Local counselor.

Patna, Bihar

20.02.10

Sunday

Kolkata Marathan

It is open to all.

Representative from different civil society organization. Students from Colleges and Universities, Sports and Media personnel is also likely to attend.

Goutam Ghosh, Sudeshna Roy, Sabyasachi Chatterjee,  Ananya Chatterjee, Suman Chatterjee, P.K. Banerjee, Prosun Banerjee

Kolkata

21.02.11 to 25.02.11

Monday to Friday

Sports

Children of sex workers, representative from different civil society organizations.

Minister of Sports, Minister of Social Welfare,Govt. of Orissa, District Magistrate, MPs, MLAs, Intellectuals from the city.

Bhubaneswar, Ofissa

01.03.11 to 2.03.11

Tuesday to Wednesday

Two days mela

The Mela is open to all. Representative from different civil society organization, Women organizations, Students of Colleges and Universities, Sports and Media personnel.

Chief Minister of Delhi, Minister of Sports & Youth affairs, Govt. of India, MPs, Representative from UN agencies.

Delhi

09.03.11

Wednesday

Closing Ceremony

Representative from women commission, Dept. of Women and Child Development, civil society organization, Women organizations, Students from Colleges and Universities, Sports and Media personnel.

Dean, Vice Chancellor, Professor of different Educational Institutes, which includes  Tata Institute of Social Science, Jawaharlal Neheru University, CU, Delhi University, Jadavpur University, Viswabharati University, P.K. Banerjee, Dola Banerjee, Jhulon Goswami, Chuni Goswami.

Auditorium /

Nandan

 

For further update please visit our website: www.durbar.org

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Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee,

12/5 Nilmoni Mitra Street,

Kolkata -700006

West Bengal

www.durbar.org