Date
08-Mar-2012 to 08-Mar-2012 		Location
Village Information Centre, Sonepat , Haryana		 Format
Sub National

On the occasion of International Women’s Day, PRIA organized a meeting-cum-cultural programme to provide a platform to rural women of Sonepat district to know about the status of women and celebrate the day through cultural activities. The theme of the programme was the status of violence against women, particularly violence in terms of female foeticide and domestic violence.

The celebration brought together more than 250 women from three village information centres (VICs). Some women, like Prem Kaur, Sarpanch, Garhi Hakikat had never known that there was a day dedicated to celebrating women and was participating for the first time in a Women’s Day celebration. The occasion provided a platform to the women to share their happiness and grief with each other and learn lessons from active women leaders working for the empowerment of women. School children and women performed dances and songs, and recited poems. All the participants were happy on this profound occasion and decided to celebrate Women’s Day every year.

 Naresh Kumari, VIC Coordinator, Khizarpur Jat Mazra shared that empowerment of women is necessary for the overall development of society. Given the very poor status of women in Haryana and the adverse child sex ratio (in Sonepat district in particular), there is great need to make the community, especially the youth, aware about the adverse impact of declining sex ratio such as trafficking of women, social insecurity, early marriage, etc, on society. VICs must take the initiative on generating this awareness.

Violence against women, particularly domestic violence, is a bigger challenge for women. Smt. Raj Bala, VIC Coordinator, Rajpur shared that the time has come for each woman to teach the community, starting from her own family. She also informed the women about various provisions (Ladali Yojana, Domestic Violence Act, PC&PNDT Act) related to women’s empowerment. All the women were motivated and took a pledge to fight female foeticide and domestic violence. The women were also oriented about the status of Dalit women and pamphlets on major schemes for the Scheduled Caste community, role of Social Justice Committees, and the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe Act were also circulated.