India is one of the deadliest places for girls. In India, we do not value our girls. We kill off approximately 1 million girls before they are born each year. Those that make it into the world, have 75% less chances of surviving their first 5 years than boys the same age. The worst gender differential in child mortality in the world! Then we get rid of them as soon as we can by marrying them off. One third of the worlds child brides come from India. We all know that girls who get married early are more vulnerabe to domestic violence and maternal mortality. We should stop dignifying child marriage by calling it – “marriage” and call it what it is – Girl slavery! 25000 girls die in dowry related deaths each year. India has one of the highest rates of domestic violence – 40% married women in India are beaten and 56% justify it. Our gender norms are fatal in their discrimination against girls! If we hope to achieve our goal of gender equality, we need to do some serious thinking about our gender norms and practices. Our school Prerna, which serves girls (age 3 to 18 yrs), from very poor slums in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India has found a way of dealing with gender norms. We make gender equality a central educational goal, put gender equality at the center of our program and use a critical feminist pedagogy to help our students recognise themselves as equal persons worthy of respect. The students are empowered and learn to resist unfair practices at home. We train our teachers to become mentors to their students and advocates of girls rights. The school engages very closely with the community ,advocating for girls rights. It publicises laws against early marriage and domestic violence, intervenes with the help of community based organisations like Child Protection services and women’s rights organisations, in cases of child marriage and domestic violence. Prerna has incorporated the study of gender power relations in thier official academic curriculum. We believe that gender studies should become a part of the official post primary curriculum for both boys and girls! Gender norms have lethal consequences in India and we should be educating our students early to develop an equitable perception of gender relations.
Our girls have been empowered by their education to not only resist violence in their own lives but have formed a group called Veerangana (meaning ‘Woman of courage’ in Hindi) to engage in community work. They ran a campaign against domestic violence in their own community, conducting discussions in homes, going house to house collecting signatures to a pledge against domestic violence, scripting and performing a street play, publicising the law and taking out a procession with placards and slogans against gender based violence. A short 3 minute film, also made by the girls, can be found on YouTube – Veerangna (from Personal Activism to Social Activism).
Educators have a great responsibility in shaping minds and attitudes. We should not lose these attitudes. While helping students understand the world around them mathematically and scientifically is important,
it is equally if not more important to help them understand the world from the lens of equality. They must learn to critically examine and reflect upon social structures and unfair gender relations constructed by them. Why should schools not be the place where they learn to do this? Our school has done this for 8 years now and our girls have learnt to advocate for themselves and for others in their community.
Dr. Urvashi Sahni
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