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By Our Staff Reporter
BANGALORE, MARCH 31. Turning to the law to stop the practice of sex-selective abortion and sexual harassment will not work in most cases and may even be counter-productive in some, Nivedita Menon, Reader, Department of Political Science, Delhi University, said here today. Ms. Menon said the law, which applies to all, cannot be used to address specific questions such as female foeticide and sexual harassment. In trying to curb the practice of sex-selective abortion through law, the freedom of individuals who want to have an abortion gets impinged, she said at a talk on `Transformatory politics beyond the law — a feminist view,' organised by Mahila Okkoota, a federation of voluntary organisations. The talk was based on excerpts from Ms. Menon's book `Recovering subversion: feminist politics beyond the law.' She said it is impossible for even a very vigilant community to prevent an individual from having an ultrasound scan in a hospital and then approaching another hospital for abortion. "But if you try to plug these loopholes you will be depriving some women of their right to have an abortion." Sexual harassment cases, she said, should be decided taking into account the context and not by a fixed definition of "discomfort." "Discomfort can also be intellectually stimulating as well as truly offensive. It all depends on the context," she said. In her experience, Ms. Menon said she often found that many cases coming before sexual harassment committees are on gender discrimination issues. This, she suggested, could be tackled only by consciously changing society by engaging its members in dialogue. "We need structural and social changes in the community to put an end to practices of sexual harassment and sex-selective abortions," she said.
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