Safe Madurai & the Southern Regional Consultation on DCSR

It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks at EKTA. After Pongal, we hosted Rejita from Sakhi, Kerala. Drawing on her experience conducting the Safe City study in Kerala, Rejita led a training session on planning, implementing, and evaluating the results for a similar study in Madurai. After a day of discussing the technical aspects of safety audits, formal and informal surveys, choosing target areas, etc., we headed to Periyar Bus Stand (the main stand in downtown Madurai) to conduct our first safety audit. Observing physical attributes and eliciting the experiences of women users of the public space, we developed a detailed, multifaceted map of Periyar's safety deficits. This map, along with similar ones drawn up by college students at other strategic locations around the city, will be used to develop specific recommendations to improve women's safety and sense of well-being in public spaces in Madurai. As mentioned previously, EKTA will release an action plan on February 14th at our One Billion Rising event, and intends to use this initial study as the base from which to launch a more comphrensive, city-wide study to assess safety of public spaces for women. 

Asking a young woman about her experiences with violence at Periyar Bus Stand

While some EKTA team members conducted further safety audits with female college students in Madurai this past week, other members drove to Chennai to facilitate and participate in the Southern Regional Consultation on the declining child sex ratio (DCSR) in India. Organized by EKTA, with support of the National Foundation for India and the United Nations Population Fund, the consultation brought together NGO representatives from 6 states (and a Union Territory) -- Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Pondicherry, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Odisha. Over 3 days, participants discussed statistics, indicators, and historical trends related to DCSR, identified root causes such as son preference, dowry, and safety and security concerns, shared successful and ineffective strategies to combat sex-selective abortions and female infanticide, and analyzed the language and implementation of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act and the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex selection) Act, among other things. Participants also made plans to continue this information-sharing process in the future to build a more wide-reaching and effective effort to address DCSR. A more detailed report on the specifics of the consultation will be available shortly on the EKTA website. 

Both the Safe Cities training and the DCSR demonstrated the importance of solidarity and collective effort of women's groups. At times, it can seem as though the challenges NGOs and women's activists face are insurmountable. However, through building networks, sharing successes, and devising new strategies to address common problems, it is clear that true progress can be made.

The beautiful lily pond at CRëNIEO, where the Southern Regional Consultation was held