South Asia Citizens Web

priests, the upholders-in-chief of “tradition”. Our soaked-in-religion cultures teach us that women are inferior to men; male imagination and interpretation take care of the rest. If the root of women’s subordination and oppression lies in patriarchy, should not organised religions be interrogated as well? Name a religion whose high priests do not perpetuate patriarchy.

The NTUI condemns all acts of sexual violence and crimes against women in the public spaces, at the workplace and in homes. The visible rise in sexual crimes across the subcontinent could be correlated with on one hand, the increasing participation of women in social life and the workforce as also to the increase in the reporting of such crimes. Both of these appear to have provided the license to all sections of the political class to issue restrictive diktats on women’s movement outside their homes as ways to prevent such crimes.

We the concerned citizens of Assam, wish to bring to your kind notice the continuing disturbed situation in Assam, post the violence of July, 2012. We request you to take urgent steps to alleviate the sufferings of the victims of the violence and displacement.

Of all the promises made in the Constitution, the most important are the promises of the ’right to life’, the ’right to dignity’, the ’right to personal liberty’ and the ’right to bodily integrity and health’. However these promises are yet to be redeemed for women. Rape and other forms of sexual assault, domestic violence,dowry death and honour killings — the most brazen violation of these rights — are a real and daily danger for most women.

India does not have a uniform protocol for medical treatment and examination of survivors of sexual assault, making responses ad hoc and unpredictable, and in the worst cases, degrading and counter-productive. This is reflected in the continued use of the so-called “finger test,” which Human Rights Watch documented in a 2010 report.