Dear GKD members, One important contribution ICT has made in India has been to help dowry victims rebuild their lives -- under the guidance of Vandana Sharma, Chairperson of Nari Raksha Samiti (NRS), a 50-year-old women's group in Delhi, India. When Vandana was nominated the Chairperson of NRS, little did she realize that one day she would use information and communications technologies (ICT) to help rebuild lives of dowry victims. NRS has been actively helping poor and destitute women protect their rights in a country where a sharp increase in the crimes against women has been reported -- up 8.3% from the previous published figures of 1998. Incidence of dowry death cases has reportedly increased 15.2% since 1998; almost one-third of these cases have been reported from the 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 and Hindu culture, a women is supposed to enter her husband's house after her marriage, leaving it only at the time of her death! For centuries, certain "custodians" of Hinduism used this tradition to exploit helpless women, most of whom had no voice, nor any place to go after leaving their parental home. It can be a life of extreme torture and 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 the young brides in all possible manner. Their never-ending demands forced the helpless brides to request more dowry from their parents after the marriage. Indeed, for some families, the demands for additional dowry were unending -- from a scooter for one family member to a car for another family member, refrigerators, television sets, home appliances, cash to help rehabilitate the business of their sons, or to marry off their own daughters. Despite being illegal and a punishable offence, dowry continues to flourish even now in many parts of India, 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 and 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 deserving and needy women. Vandana has also been imaginative in her approach, recognizing the impact of computers in the changing Indian economy. She believed that women can get 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. NRS received many dowry cases from the Police and from the Government authorities, which helped her and her volunteers enlist the dowry victims into a sustained, long-term computer education program. From then on, dowry victims made the journey into the world of computers at NRS. NRS has been able to draw on some voluntary faculty from well known computer institutions, as well as get some state-of-the-art computers. In fact, Vandana invested a sizeable amount from her hard-earned savings into the procurement of computers. The institution currently trains 250 young women, of whom 60 are dowry victims with a history of exploitation and harassment. The rest of the women are from very impoverished and poor backgrounds. They try to cheer up the dowry victims as well as help them rebuild their lives. The focus of the ICT education at NRS is to train the women in very basic computer literacy as well as in office automation softwares such as Excel, Word, and Power Point so that they can be an asset to any organization they work with. Vandana says "Even if NRS is able to rehabilitate 50% of the 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." Best regards, Chetan Sharma-Executive Director Datamation Consultants Pvt. Ltd. 361 Patparganj Industrial Area, Delhi-110 092 (India) Ph#: 91-11-2167230/2169162/2168017/2167973 email : [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.datamationindia.com P.S. 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 ------------ ***GKD is an initiative of the Global Knowledge Partnership*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.globalknowledge.org>
