Empowering women & girls in villages to live a life dignity and equality
An Awakening in Rural Karjat : An insider's view into empowHER India's gender sensitization sessions.
When I signed up to work with empowHER India, the last thing I expected was that I’d be tied up in the middle of a lush green wadi in Karjat while a crowd of women and girls looked on.
"Just trust me. I hope you’re not uncomfortable," our implementation manager Rouf had whispered to me before we began. Trust him I did. And so, on his instruction, curious women sourced and tied the dupattas that now bound my arms and legs, wrapped around my head, chest, and waist, and even covered my eyes.
"Has anyone seen a woman in the village bound and tied like madam here?" As a Hindi speaker, I could only just understand Rouf’s sentence uttered in Marathi.
I couldn't see anything, but I imagine the women must have shaken their heads. "No?" Rouf challenged. "Look at her again."
"She has a mind of her own, but she can’t think freely because it is bound. She has eyes but she cannot dream or see her true conditions. She has a mouth but she can’t express her opinions. Her heart wishes for things but isn’t free to express them. She wants to give birth to her daughter, but she is afraid that she may not be able to. Her hands are tied, so she can't work for the good of society despite her yearning. And so are her legs, forbidding her from moving freely in society."
Stunned silence in the room. I had become a visual metaphor.
"Has anyone seen a woman in the village bound and tied like madam here?” Rouf repeated. This time, he was met with earnest responses. "Yes!" In that electric atmosphere, the women and girls were shocked into recognizing glimpses of themselves in my bound self.
"And who tied her up?" This time, I could sense the women shifting uncomfortably in silence for a few moments as they realized that they, too, were complicit in each other’s oppression. "We did," one of them finally admitted.
As Rouf and the women spoke about the restricted conditions of the women in the village and what had caused them to be that way, I took a moment to process the power of what just happened. Here we were, strangers in the middle of a small village with nothing in common, but we had shared an intimate moment of realization. The ice had broken.
"I request one volunteer from the group to come and untie madam’s hands," said Rouf. Immediately, I felt someone come up and loosen the bonds around my wrists. Another volunteer untied my chest. Women began to come up in twos and threes without invitation to free me from my restraints.
As my eyes blinked open and grew accustomed to the light, I saw a group of women transformed. Their eyes were full of emotion, and their former hesitation had been abandoned. Women stepped forward to speak to us individually, giving us insight into their lives. As we parted, we were strangers no more, but partners in an awakening.