Hyderabad, July 31: Beauty parlours and massage centres in the Old City are becoming belts for prostitution and sexual abuse for hapless women forced into the trade, said activists from a Women’s Resource and Welfare NGO in the Old City on Thursday. At a discussion on the issue of rape and its effects on victims of sexual abuse, members of Shaheen, an NGO working against sexual abuse of women in the Old City indicated that given the complex nature of the social order, especially among marginalised and minority groups in the State, “a combination of patriarchy and poverty has become rampant in the poorer suburbs of the Old City.”
In what is seemingly a daunting task, Jameela Nishat is among a handful of activists who have been working for women’s rights in the Old City, under the banner of Shaheen, since its inception in 2002. Working in what was described as “a patriarchal and poverty ridden set-up”, the foundation is presently involved in 20 slums in the Old City, apart from a few areas in the RR District.
According to a survey conducted on 1,000 households in the district by the organisation last year, “there is rampant violation of women’s dignity and freedom, which includes cases of forceful marriage and sexual subjugation.” The findings also indicated that areas like Babanagar “have become pockets of young girls being married off to elderly men in the Middle East for dowry.”
Instances of sexual abuse for women, especially from the poorer sections of the Old City have reportedly resulted in “the women being ostracised from society and being passed off into flesh trade,” a phenomenon that has allegedly “seen a single woman being ‘shared’ by eight husbands, a figure which in an extreme case went up to around a 100 men for a single woman,” revealed Nishat. The members of the NGO further noted that in particular, “areas like Hasan Nagar and Shaheen Nagar have been identified to be particularly vulnerable to economically backward rape victims turning to prostitution to support themselves.”
The activists indicated that the reason that the gender inequality in the Old City has been left unchecked is “due to the fact that most NGOs and activist groups shy away for fear of being labelled as ‘communal’.” The issue, they said, “is complicated and given the rigid social stratification, makes the issue of emancipating victims of sexual abuse a very sensitive affair, which is a road most activist groups tend to avoid.” In this regard, the NGO allegedly approached the District Collectorate office for a case involving the rape of a 6-year-old girl child. “Till date, there has been no compensation paid to the child’s family,” said a member of the group.
Though the members of the organisation seemed divided on the issue of compensating the victims of sexual abuse, some citing that “monetary compensation should be ruled out in favour of punishment for the accused,” the panelists agreed that “there is much road to cover to address the issue of sexual abuse among women in a comprehensive and sensitive manner.”
–Agencies–