Are women safe in India?

Being in the 21st century with technology and in a world so advanced, we still talk about whether women are safe, in India, especially. With surveys and understandings of what is happening around us, it is time that the country joins hands together to realise that women are not safe by any means in India. There are many cases that have been reported, yet nothing has been done to change the law or the system.

No matter what, the old thoughts and upbringing still lay cluttered in the minds of men that women cannot be above men, but below them. It is sad to understand that women are the better halves of society, yet they are the ones who face torture in many ways.

Even today, leave alone villages where people are uneducated, the educated society or those who claim to be part of high class society, opt for the abortion of girl children! When a girl child is born, the first thought is, the parent has to make dowry to get her married off. Aren’t men and their families ashamed to ask for dowries? Do they survive on the money from the girl’s house? From inside the womb, till her death, a woman is always faced with danger. In the womb, the chances of being killed, even before seeing light, she faces harsh brutalities like molestation, abuse, physical and mental tortures and, above all, a heap of workload. In old age, they are abandoned and still open for more brutalities till death.

The present scenario is not going to change, but the coming generations could definitely make a remarkable difference. The government has to come up with strategies where every child gets educated. Respecting the opposite sex has to be taught from school levels and parents and teachers have to join hands on this subject. Women are not child bearing objects, but they are equally powerful and emotional.

- The reader is a student based in Dubai.