The women’s organisations working for women rights in Lucknow marched the streets silently on the 12th of February 2011 to send the message of protest against the failure of the government to provide protection to women against violence.
With placards and banners screaming their woes, women both young and old marched silently from the UP Hindi Sansthan in newly done up Hazratganj to the GPO crossing.
Says Prof. Roop Rekha Verma, former Vice Chancellor of Lucknow University and whose organisation Sajhi Duniya was among the participating organisations, “The recent brutal attacks on women in the state quite evidently show that women or girls do not even have the right to say ‘NO’ when her honour is attacked. Until now if she said yes for fear of her life, she was branded selfish. If she decides to refuse the advances of the perpetrators, she is brutally attacked and her limbs and other body parts are hacked to teach her a lesson.”
But while the administration and the lawmakers continue to snooze over the deteriorating law and order situation, it’s the civil society organisations as usual who are playing the watch dog of society.
In keeping with that ideology, the women’s organisations that carried out the silent march drew up a joint memorandum which demanded better laws, educating police personnel towards female victims who seek help from thanas, and demand for proper compensation and rehabilitation of the victims.
The joint memorandum was handed over to the office of the Governor of Uttar Pradesh by a delegation with members from Saaksham Foundation, Sajhi Duniya, AIDWA, NFIW, MESWA and AALI. (CNS)
