The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : For these courageous women, it is a new battle every day

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Saturday, Mar 08, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

For these courageous women, it is a new battle every day

Deepa Kurup

BANGALORE: Half way through her narrative, Sudha (not her real name) stops to request that her name not be published, so that she can continue to fight her daily legal battles. Sudha, a sex-worker but now in a busy activist avatar, inspires hundreds of others like her to fight the social forces that deny them their rights everyday.

Married at 10 to a 25-year-old man, this young Dalit woman ran away from a husband who sexually violated and abused her, and from continuous harassment by the landlords of her to a city which forced her into prostitution and bent her till she broke. Today, she works on HIV awareness, helps sex workers set up funds for their future and also takes up cases against the police for abuse.

I stop her candid narrative to ask where she finds the courage to be who she is. “A lot of people ask me that,” she says. “Life has hardened my soul. I stopped pitying myself. Now I tell my story so a few others do not have to go through this.” From the innocent girl from a village near Tumkur, who asked directions from mannequins in the city, to the bold young woman who can hold forth before the Director-General of Police on the plight and the rights of sex workers.

“I have come a long way,” she says. In a bid to stop “immoral” activities, even well intentioned policemen round up prostitutes from the streets expecting them to not return to their old jobs. “Where will they go? Why do not they target the rowdies, the pimps and the abusive policemen?” she asks, a question she asks everyday of the authorities and even insensitive journalists.

Battles are easier to fight when the enemy is in sight. Haseena Hussain says that her life — confined to the four walls of her house — has not moved since the day her former colleague threw acid on her face and made her blind. For the past nine years, her life has revolved around day-to-day subsistence and the battles she helps fight to get help for acid attack victims.

“Nobody will give me a job because they think I am ugly. People cringe away from me,” she says. She sounds innocent and young, just like the 19-year-old she once was, who dreamt of being a fashion designer. “I feel better when I go to the NGO group since it makes me feel that there is some purpose to my life,” she says. She doesn’t share their faith in the Government.

Ask her how she had the strength to survive and fight, and her instant reply is: “for my mother”.

Much like Haseena, Rathi Menon also derived support and strength from her mother, and a lady who read about her and came forward to support her legal battle. Today, Rathi works in a public sector job in Bangalore, is independent and back in charge of her life. On a train journey in 1996, she fell onto the tracks and lost two limbs. The Railway department dragged her to court, following which she fought a long legal battle for compensation.

“I got this job on my own,” she says with an obvious sense of self-pride. She confesses that she feels very fortunate to work in an enabling environment. “A lot of handicapped people I know have to fight battles everyday,” she says.

“People have told me that my courage inspires them. If my story can inspire one soul to fight back, I would have achieved my purpose,” she explains.

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