Support 5000 women out of sexual & economic abuse

Having just returned from India I am pleased to report that this project continues to give much needed support to women who are experiencing caste discrimination, sexual harassment and domestic violence.

It saddens me; however, to report that our project partner continues to receive many requests for assistance from young women who have been subjected to despicable sexual assaults from men of higher castes. These heinous crimes continue because there is little or no redress under a rural legal system which is largely ignored by police and local authorities.

It is for this reason that our project partner works tirelessly to bring criminals and their protectors, including police and doctors to justice.

In my last report I shared the story of Diksha Ashruba Shinde and her sister Panchshila of Shindi village, Beed District. The sisters were violently assaulted by a group of nine men in an unprovoked caste attack. Both Diksha and Panchshila were punched in the face and chest and beaten with sticks and iron rods.

Thanks to the work of this project, the doctor who refused to admit the sisters to the Kaij Rural Hospital was suspended from work and five police constables and one police inspector were suspended from work under section (4) of prevention of Atrocities Act.

The project’s team have also successful won compensation from local government for the sisters as a result of their advocacy work. The project’s publicity of the case drew the State Home Minister of Maharashtra to make an unprecedented declaration that any village accused of repeated atrocities would find its development fund frozen by government.

If there is a silver lining to this case it is that, with the help of the project, both Diksha and Panchshila, have fought to turn disaster into opportunity. Both sisters have enrolled for and been selected to attend Nirmala Niketan College of Social Work in Mumbai, where they will train in order to dedicate themselves to the empowerment and development of Dalit Women.

Thank you for your continued generous support for this project. Your generosity is giving young women like Diksha and Panchshila a voice and bringing criminals to justice.

Having recently joined Karuna Trust I would first like to apologize for the delay in this report and secondly thank you so much for your generous support to date. I am pleased to say that as part of my induction I visited several of our projects in Maharashtra in March this year. This project was among those I visited and was the one that gave me the greatest inspiration. I met Manisha Tokale, the secretary of our project partner SPMM and many of the rest of the team. Manisha is such a powerhouse, fighting for the rights of Dalit women in the Beed district, that I have included a short profile on her in the attached report. I visited Padalshingi, one of the villages in which women are benefiting from the project's work. Seeing the expressions on the faces of the women being addressed by Manisha was my main inspiration. I was told that the women of the village had previously had no role to play in village decisions and now they are leading the change themselves. I have mentioned in the report that this one village now has 25 women's support groups, which means that around 400 women are directly benefiting just in that one village. I have also included the case study of Alka Masukale who has started her own small scale enterprise as a result of the project. I was particularly impressed with the structure and organization of the project. Training plays such an important part in delivering the activities and the project is ensuring that new women leaders are being recruited and trained all the time. Of course the women's groups are one part of the work, the other, more graphical side of the project's commitment is to support Dalits who experience violence. The project team talked me through some of the atrocity cases they have been involved in and I have included details of an attack against two young women Diksha Ashruba Shinde and her sister Panchshila who the Flying Squad have assisted. At the end of the project I have included a table which details the project's results against the objectives of each activity. I have also attached our latest Newsletter, which includes the story of Sanjivani Pawar (Beyond Fear) a beneficiary of this project. After the death of her husband Sanjivani lost her land and experienced sexual harassment from the men of the village. Since becoming involved in the project she has successfully won a Land Rights battle, is leading one of the women's self help groups and is a leader within her village. Thank you so much for you on going support. Your generosity really is making a difference to the lives of women experiencing discrimination, sexual harassment and social exclusion.

• Project Report May 2009 (PDF)
  
• Newsletter 2008 (PDF)
  

The project has recently been involved with several incidents of abuse against women:

Mrs. Usha Annasaheb Mhaske, a 48 year old woman, lives in Kaij Block of Takali village. After marrying Annasaheb Mhaske some 20 years ago they moved to Kaij. M Mr. Annasaheb owned a bicycle repairing shop and they lived happily with there 3 daughters and a son.

However Annasaheb developed a drinking problem loosing control and turning violent against his wife and children on a daily basis. Eventually he prevented Mrs. Usha from leaving the house to go to work and she started to become very weak both physically and mentally. It was at this point that Usha came into contact with one of the Spmm community workers who provided support and guidance, they explained the importance of taking a stand against the abuse and later that day when Anna returned they managed to avoid the cycle of abuse , Annasaheb went to live on his own for a few days and was also visited by the community worker. The support given in this case meant that after a few days Annasaheb could return home with the assurance that things would change. He is now living back with his family. Poonam Ghatge was a 16 years old girl, living with her grand parents after her parents migrated to Mumbai for employment. She was studying in 10th standard. A group of boys in her class began to tease on a daily basis causing her great distress. The story however took a very sinister turn after one of the boys asked Poonam to marry him and she refused. One day on her way home during lunch time she was followed and was burn alive by the boy who feel disrespected by her refusal to marry him. The youth then absconded before he could be brought to justice. Spmm intervened to ensure that the boy was arrested and a procedures begun against him.