<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Secretary, department of social welfare, Sarah R. Ritse said gender based violence was posing a great hindrance to achieving gender equality. She pointed out that Nagaland was considered one of the safest states for women, yet the number of crimes against women were on the rise.<\/p>\n
Ritse said this during the launching program of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence organized by Nagaland State Commission for Women held on the theme “End Gender-Based Violence in the World of Work” at the office of NSCW, Kohima Saturday.<\/p>\n
Stating that disturbing and tragic incidences were being read and heard about every day all over the country, Ritse said gender based violence was manifested in the form of rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment, eve teasing and even through cybercrimes.<\/p>\n
Calling to fight against gender violence, she pointed out that the Supreme Court of India had acknowledged that “Sexual harassment at work place” was a human right violation. <\/p>\n
Ritse also dwelt on the special legislation — “Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013”, aimed at giving safe working spaces for women and to build an enabling work environment that respects women’s right to equality.<\/p>\n
Any working women in the organized or unorganized sector, private or government can file a complaint if you face harassment of any kind, she added. She also spoke about the Social Welfare department’s schemes for women affected by violence Women Helpline 181, Sakhi scheme, and the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao (BBBP) initiative.<\/p>\n
She advocated for a collective responsibility by men and institutions (schools\/colleges), and religious institutions like Churches to address this issue together.<\/p>\n
Gender discrimination at the heart of customary laws which govern Naga life: Dr. Ao<\/strong><\/p>\n In her introductory note, chairperson NSCW Dr. Temsula Ao spoke about redefining customary law from a gender perspective by re-doing or changing the existing entity or concept, and giving it a new meaning in the current context.<\/p>\n In social discourse, Dr. Ao said the word gender was often tagged with negative aspects of society, like gender bias, gender discrimination etc. that discloses the deep-rooted mistrust and injustice against women. The chairperson pointed out that some positive tags have come into bureaucratic parlance like gender budgeting, gender friendly and equality etc.<\/p>\n However she asked whether the situation of women in Naga society had changed perceptibly as a result of positive orientations. She maintained that whatever the result of such efforts, it will be superficial at best because the core of gender discrimination lies at the very heart of customary laws which direct and govern Naga life even in the 21st century.<\/p>\n The chairperson said the two important areas where the redefining of these laws was required were: Women’s acceptance into village councils, town committees and the legislative assembly, and equal inheritance for women and girls.<\/p>\n She said that in-spite of NSCW initiating a dialogue with apex bodies of all the tribes in order to facilitate the process of giving women shares in the parental property, she regretted it was only half done. She also reported that NSCW had conducted extensive awareness programs and seminars in all the tribal headquarters since 2014.<\/p>\n Dr. Ao exuded confidence that as per the reactions NSCW received, Naga women will be able to secure the inheritance for women and girls through an amendment\/addendum on the existing customary laws on the issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gender violence, a hindrance to gender equality: Sarah Ritse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[679],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nagaland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}