The women of south Asia have one thing in common: Most of them have been subjected to gender-based violence. The Mrinal Gore Interactive Centre for Peace and Justice, in association with the Advanced Centre of Womens Studies at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) launched a three-day South Asia Women's conference at the TISS campus on Friday.
Titled 'Violence: A human and political predicament', the conference will have various workshops, lectures, plenaries and cultural events to highlight people's perspective on south Asian gender issues. Activists from SAARC countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Nepal will also be a part of the conference.
"The Mrinal Gore centre will officially be launched in January 2015, but we are beginning with this conference with many objectives. We will develop our own perspective on south Asian masculinity and crimes committed in the name of honour and migration. We will look into the UNSC resolutions regarding violence in all these countries and make the initiative a political space and a pressure centre to bring about more resolutions and not as an NGO," said Varsha Rajan Berry, who is heading the new centre along with Jayant Dharmadhikari from the Keshav Gore trust.
"We are trying to push for a renewed interaction between these countries," added Berry. The idea to come up with the centre came up after legendary activist Mrinal Gore passed away in 2012. They wanted to create a space which does justice to what she stood for and decided to have a south Asian conference. "There is a need to hear the narratives of victims of this violence and activists who have worked in this field. The objective is to record, document, take stock of the whole situation and not just have an academic experience. Globalisation, capitalism, land grabbing, migration, border skirmishes, security forces, ingrained patriarchy in caste and religion, sexual abuse is common to all of us," said Wandana Sonarkar, professor of gender development, caste and patriarchy at TISS.
Experts from south Asian countries said that a dialogue such as this is important because in SAARC meetings, just heads of state interact while people are not represented. "It is important that we strengthen our interactions because there is a lot of competition among south Asian countries for natural resources such as water and fishing etc. The root cause of violence in all these countries may differ, but the principles of combating them are universal. We are here to help society identify and fight all types of extremism," said a south Asian expert on women issues.
The conference is on till December 7 (Sunday) at the TISS campus in Deonar.
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