When Vandana
Sharma was nominated the Chairperson of a 50 year old women’s
group in Delhi, India called the Nari Raksha Samiti (NRS) ; little
did she realize she would used ICTs on day to help rebuild lives
of several dowry victims.
NRS has been actively
helping poor & destitute women protect their rights in a country
where a sharp increase—up 8.3% from the previous published
figures of 1998-- in the crimes against women has been reported.
Incidence of dowry death cases reported an increase of 15.2% in
1998; almost one-third of these cases have been reported from the
adjoining state of Uttar Pradesh and from the capital city Delhi
alone. NRS has been working actively towards rehabilitation of dowry
victims many of whom end up losing even shelter for themselves.
As per traditional Indian & Hindu culture,
a women is supposed to enter her husband’s house after her
marriage, only to leave it at the time of death ! For centuries,
certain "custodians" of Hinduism, used this tradition
to exploit helpless women; most of whom had no voice; neither any
place to go after leaving their parental home. It was a life of
extreme torture & exploitation for many young brides; with all
members of the extended family—husband, mother-in-law, father-in-law,
sisters and brothers-in-law—ganging up together to exploit
them in all possible manner. Their never ending demands forced the
helpless brides to request their parents for more dowry after the
marriage; and indeed for some families the demands were unending—from
scooter for some to a car for another family, direct cash to help
rehabilitate the business of their sons; additional dowry demands
in cash or kind in the form of refrigerators, television sets, home
appliances to marry off their own daughters. Despite being illegal
and a punishable offense; in many parts of India dowry continues
to flourish even now; forcing families to unimaginable misery. Even
though special courts have also been set up by the Government to
help dispose criminal cases against women; the speed of disposal
of the cases by the court has been very tardy—with almost 43.5%
cases registered under the dowry prohibition act pending for more
than 8 years; and 84.3% cases registered under the cruelty by husbands
& relatives pending for more than 6 years !! And these are only
for the reported cases since due to social stigma most crimes don’t
even get registered with the police.
No wonder, a large
number of young dowry victims suffer due to lack of awareness of
their rights, illiteracy as well as oppressive social customs. NRS
launched a vocational training program using a grant made available
to them by the Delhi Govt. The objective was to help dowry victims
attain a sustainable livelihood by teaching them advanced tailoring,
interior decoration cookery, food preservation and weaving. NRS
also tries to set up linkages with the industry and obtain jobs
for some deserving and needy women.
Vandana was also imaginative
in her approach to recognize the impact of computers in the changing
Indian economy. She shared an inherent belief that women can do
a far better job with the computers; and these factors motivated
her to set up a small computer education center within the old,
dilapidated building of the NRS. As it is, NRS was being referred
many dowry cases by the Police and by the Government authorities;
which helped her and her volunteers enlist the dowry victims into
a sustained, long term computer education program.
From their on, the
journey of dowry victims into the world of computers at NRS started.
They were able to draw some voluntary faculty from the a reputed
Computer institution as well as get some state of art computers.
In fact Vandana invested from her hard earned savings, sizable amount
into the procurement of computers. The institution currently trains
250 young women of whom 60 are dowry victims and have a history
of exploitation and harassment. Rest of the women are from very
impoverished and poor background. Others try to cheer up the dowry
victims from time to time as well as help them rebuild their lives.
The focus at of IT education at NRS is only to train them in very
basic computer literacy as well as in office automation software's
such as Excel, Word, and Power Point so that they can be an asset
to any organization t they work with.
Vandana says ":Even
if NRS is able to rehabilitate 50% of estimated dowry victims in
our area; we would have accomplished a major achievement. Fortunately
for NRS, the IT industry is doing well; so my girls have a hope
otherwise they would not know what to do with their lives"
NRS can be contacted
at :
Mrs. Vandana Sharma-Chairperson
Nari Raksha Samiti
2 Raj Niwas Marg, Delhi-110 054 (India)
Ph# 91-11-3973949/2945372
