[WSF-Discuss] Fwd: [ANN:2084] Bhopal Statement of women against sexual violence and state repression

Fri Oct 30 08:40:18 UCT 2009

Friday, October 30 2009

On both the growing state violence on people’s movements in India and,  
in particular, on sexual violence on women as a measure of conducting  
warfare.

Recently, there have been similar postings coming out of Africa and of  
Latin America.  Is this something that people are just noticing more,  
or reporting more, or is this a phenomenon that is actually increasing  
in intensity ?

             JS

fwd

Begin forwarded message:

> From: SUNDARA BABU <babuubab at gmail.com>
> Date: October 30 2009 10:53:35 am GMT+05:30
> To: activism-news-network <activism-news-network at googlegroups.com>
> Subject: [ANN:2084] Bhopal Statement of women against sexual  
> violence and state  repression
> Reply-To: activism-news-network at googlegroups.com
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Ranjana <ranjanapadhi at yahoo.co.uk>
>
>
> Dear friends,
> This is the statement issued at the end of a 2-day meeting in  
> Bhopal. Over 50 people participated and discussed the issue of  
> increasing sexual violence in the context of state repression with  
> focus on Chhattisgarh and Manipur. Hopefully, this is the beginning  
> of a sustained campaign as some future plans have been made too.
> Please circulate this widely.
> In deep solidarity,
> Ranjana
>

Women Against Sexual Violence
and State Repression

Statement of women’s organizations on increasing state violence on  
people's movements and sexual violence on women by police,  
paramilitary and army.

Bhopal, 24th and 25th October 2009

We, the undersigned representatives of women’s organizations and  
individuals, are deeply shocked and disturbed by the Indian  
government's plans to launch an armed offensive by paramilitary and  
army forces in the adivasi-dominant forest areas of Chhattisgarh,  
Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. This  
attack is ostensibly to “liberate” these areas from the influence of  
Maoist rebels, and to undertake “development” activities there. There  
are reports of massive deployment of troops in these parts in  
preparation for this exercise. For the past half century, the Indian  
government has used various pretexts of insurgency to stifle the  
democratic aspirations of the people by giving a free hand to  
military, para and other security forces and the police. As a  
consequence, life and liberty has become a distant dream for people in  
large areas of the country, particularly in the areas of North East  
and Kashmir.

In the recent times, in land acquisition, in privatization of natural  
resources and water, in clearing the country to suit national and  
multinational capital, new laws have been introduced to suppress any  
resistance, peaceful or otherwise. While this wreaks havoc and misery  
on the lives of lakhs of the most marginalized and destitute  
population of the country, as women’s organizations we are enormously  
concerned about the implications of the presence of large number of  
paramilitary and military forces for the women of these regions. In  
all this, women are the worst sufferers. In the past 25 years, in all  
incidences of mass rape by Assam Rifles in Manipur in the early 80s to  
Kupwara in Jammu and Kashmir, no justice has been accorded to the  
women and no punishment to the perpetrators. The brutal torture, gang- 
rape and killing of Manorama in July 2004, by Assam Rifles personnel  
in Manipur, which has been under the armed forces for several decades  
now, and the courageous protest of the Manipuri women against their  
continuous sexual abuse by the armed forces, speaks volumes of the  
inhuman violence inflicted by the military and the police on women in  
the name of counter-insurgency operations. While the Manorama case got  
highlighted, incidents of sexual violence in the daily life of the  
women in states under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act largely go  
unreported. Recently in the case of gang rape and murder of two women  
in Shopian in Kashmir, ignoring the strong protests by the local  
community, the state agencies have blatantly tried to protect the  
accused. In a case where the atrocity is committed by a state agency,  
the accountability of the crime has to be broadened to encompass not  
just the rapist but all the other authorities as well as the state  
administration and the  judiciary which is duty bound to protect the  
rights of women as citizens. This makes the functionaries of the  
administration and the whole state an accused and co-perpetrators in  
the crimes. And in situations where the state through assuming  
unlimited powers and limits people's democratic rights, the  
accountability and its burden of guilt become even stronger.

Presently, driven by aggressive corporatisation, sustained state  
violence in Chhattigarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, and West Bengal and other  
states has become the single mantra to evict people from their land  
and livelihood. While this is also being done in the name of  
“development” or “maintaining law and order”, the real design is to  
appropriate resources and dispossess people of the area.

Tribal women in Bastar in Chhattisgarh have been subjected to the most  
extreme forms of violence since 2005, by Salwa Judum, a civil militia  
created and funded by the state, to counter the Maoists.  Villagers  
here have reported to local activists and NGOs, of incidents of gang  
rapes, custodial rape, mutilation of private parts, murder and  
continuous sexual abuse in villages, police stations and the relief  
camps set up by the state government in the area. The extra-judicial  
murder in 2006 of a tribal for being a Maoist, and the subsequent gang- 
rape of his wife in front of her child for several days inside a  
police station in Sarguja by police personnel including the SP is one  
such documented case. We are shocked that there are not even official  
records and FIRs of the cases of sexual violence in Dantewada  
district. Despite more than 90 sworn affidavits filed in cases pending  
before the Supreme Court, statements made before the National Human  
Rights Commission, and letters to the Superintendent of Police, the  
police in Bastar refuse to register cases of rape by Salwa Judum  
goons. Finally when six women dared to file private complaints and  
make their statements before a Magistrate in Konta, there is  
inexplicable and inordinate delay of months together in registering  
the cases. In the meanwhile these women and their entire villages are  
being threatened and intimidated by the accused and other Salwa Judum  
leaders and SPOs that the entire village would be burnt down and the  
villagers implicated in Naxalite cases – a threat which they know is  
not an exaggeration.

Sexual violence comes handy to those in power to quell women's  
increasing participation in resistance movements and struggles. Rape  
and sexual violence are being systematically used as a repressive  
measure by the police in all forms of opposition and resistance to  
state policies. The security forces, a law unto themselves in many  
remote areas, operate with impunity, as if they have a “license” to  
rape women, especially those belonging to the tribal and dalit  
communities. It is also seen that if the police are not themselves  
inflicting violence, they are abetting in it, either by being mute  
spectators, or ignoring these incidents, or simply refusing to  
register the FIRs.

While this is the situation in areas where there are so-called  
“insurgency” movements, there is violence against women even in cases  
of non-violent mass movements.  Since the neo-liberal turn of the1990s  
there has been an increased onslaught by the state on the lives and  
livelihoods of large sections of the our population in the name of  
“development” projects such as mining and special economic zones, and  
large communities are being deprived of their lands, rivers, forests,  
and other common property resources. Pushed to desperation people are  
organizing in several ways to resist this large-scale displacement and  
dispossession. In several cases women have been at the forefront of  
these struggles.  It has been seen that women are specifically  
targeted in such cases, and such political participation is being  
repressed by use of rape and other kinds of violence on women in mass  
movements.

We have no trust in police personnel and find police stations most  
unsafe for women. Growing incidences of custodial rape is evidence of  
the police attitude to women, especially when it pertains to dalit,  
adivasi and working class women, not even sparing the mentally  
challenged women. In June 2009, a tribal woman from Betul, MP was  
arrested along with her husband and son in a dowry case.  Later she  
was gang-raped in police custody. This incident followed an earlier  
one, where a dalit woman along with several others had protested  
against continuous sexual harassment (“eve-teasing”) by private  
security guards of the MP Electricity Board, who resorted to firing in  
which one youth was killed.

It is a matter of great concern to see the state's attempts to label  
all forms of opposition and resistance to its policies as 'Maoist' and  
“Naxalite’, and suppress any form of dissent. People’s movements,  
protests by democratic rights and other activists, reporting by  
journalists, are all being labeled as Maoist and Maoist sympathizers,  
and being subjected to repression.

In the current context, we demand the Indian government to immediately  
take action against all actors including governance and judiciary,  
besides the actual perpetrators of sexual assaults, already registered  
in these Special Act zones.

We demand an immediate repeal of AFSPA .

We further demand an immediate withdrawal of its armed offensive  
against a largely tribal population.  Instead, as expected of a  
democratic government, the government should move towards addressing  
politically the long-standing grievances of the tribal population,  
which have been explicitly pointed out by the government’s own report.  
We strongly urge all other democratic minded women’s groups and  
organizations to join us in this urgent appeal to the Indian government.

AIPWA, AISA (Delhi), Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan,  
Chhatisgarh Mukti Morcha (Chhatisgarh), Dalit Stree Shakti  
(Hyderabad), HRLN (MP), Human Rights Alert (Manipur), IRMA (Manipur),  
IWID, Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan (Badwani, M.P.), Kashipur  
Solidarity (Delhi), M.P. Mahila Manch (M.P.), Nari Mukti Sanstha  
(Delhi), Navsarjan (Ahemdabad Gujarat), NBA (MP), Pratidhwani (Delhi),  
PUCL (karnataka), Saheli (Delhi), Sahmet (Kesla, M.P.), Samajwadi Jan  
Parishad (M.P.), Sangini (Bhopal), Stree Adhikar Sanghatan (UP),  
Vanangana (Chitrakut, U.P.), Vidyarthi Yuvjan Sabha, Women’s Right  
Resource Center (MP), Yuva Samvaad (Bhopal).

Contact :
Madhya Pradesh Mahila Manch
+91-94253 77349

______________________________
Jai Sen
jai.sen at cacim.net
CACIM, A-3 Defence Colony, New Delhi 110 024, India
www.cacim.net
Ph : +91-11-4155 1521, +91-98189 11325

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