Category Archives: Media
South Asia is Rising
What’s One Billion Rising (OBR) and why should you rise?
Kamla Bhasin, world famous feminist writer and activist, who’s leading OBR in South Asia– gave us a quick interview on the worldwide campaign.
Video- filmed and edited by Megara Tegal in Nepal.
Day: Sixteen
This image is free of copyrights. Feel free to use this image to raise awareness about gender based violence.
Day sixteen features a photograph by Raashid Riza.
It’s the final day of the campaign and we’re highlighting how children affected by domestic violence. Contributing to the topic, the following post was made by Bhagya Senaratne.
Their Story
It’s not my story to tell. However, I have been privy to this for a few years now. I was shocked to say the least, when I got to know her story, their story.
The story’s my friend’s, her family’s. To any outsider, even myself, they would fit in to the neatly worded “happy family” category. Or so the exterior did seem. But the insides of this happy family were crumbling.
It was the usual story of abuse towards the wife. The husband or my friend’s father would have one too many to drink at home and would find sorry excuses to beat his wife. He would leave her with bad bruises after thrashing her around the house, screaming at her, throwing things at her if not her.
If only he stopped at that. He used to take his intoxicated anger on his children as well; pulling them by their hair, throwing them against the walls etc. My friend used to go through the worst of fits, with being flung down stairs and smashed against cupboards on top of the other abuse.
Even a call to a friend during an episode like this is life threatening. The father would come looking for her, even if she were to lock herself in the room. Her physical bruises weren’t that visible but her mother wasn’t that lucky.
What I found intriguing about this was that, their’s is an educated family. Both parents are in respectable professions, and it really made me wonder why a man of with his background would do something like this to his loved ones and also why a lady of her nature would endure this.
However, this doesn’t end like most of the other stories where the victims don’t stand up. My friend took the courage to stand up to her father and made him sign a ‘letter’ when he was sober, stating that he will seek counselling and that he won’t hurt his family again. This was before she was to go to the police and make a complaint and there after go to the Child Protection Authority. It was a tough decision for her and I respected her [and still do] very much. It was heart breaking for me to see her go through this and not be there during the worst of a series of situations and only help her sitting at a pc thousands of miles away in a different land. Unfortunately, the ‘letter’ didn’t work, but she used another technique in the form of non-violent communication which has thus far worked for her, with her father’s responses to her changing.
It has been a year now, and to this day I haven’t heard her complain about his behaviour. So I guess, one can get lucky if they stand up and express their feelings.
Day: Fifteen
This image is free of copyrights. Feel free to use this image to raise awareness about gender based violence.
Day fifteen features a photograph by T.
Intimate partner violence is a little studied, yet frequently occurring phenomenon in Sri Lanka. IPV occurs in many ways, including physical, verbal, psychological and sexual abuse by a spouse. Reports show that there is a high prevalence of abuse such as marital rape and sexual abuse, wife beating and assault with a weapon.
Sri Lankan society tends to take the very backward view that what happens within the home should stay within the home, and that some abuse is always a part of marriage. The Demographic and Health Survey 2006/2007 shows that between 20-50% of women think a husband is justified in wife-beating for reasons such as “argues with him”, “goes out without telling him” and “refuses to have sexual intercourse with him”. A study conducted among a sample of undergraduate medical students at the University of Colombo revealed that “33.4% of the students justified wife beating, and 63.1% stated that they believed women bear a proportionately larger responsibility for the violence perpetrated against them” (Jayatilleke et al, 2010)
Perceptions and attitudes play an important role in how women are perceived within a relationship, but also affect the help that is available to them after violence occurs. The attitudes and sensitivity of police, healthcare workers and the community are important in helping to alleviate IPV.
While society turns a blind eye, many reasons have been cited for IPV. Alcoholism, early marriage age, low income and existing patriarchal attitudes, among a slew of other reasons, all contribute towards IPV. None of them, however, are an excuse.
Sources:
http://www.biosciencetrends.com/action/downloaddoc.php?docid=308 and http://www.statistics.gov.lk/social/dhs_final_report/Caption%20for%20the%20web-%20final%20report%20tables.pdf
– T
One day left of the 16 day campaign… Tomorrow 10 December, will feature the last photograph of the 16 day online campaign against gender based violence by the WMC campaign against GBV.
For more information about this campaign click here
T is a member of the steering committee of Beyond Borders. She works in the development sector and has mad culinary skills. She’s a writer, a poet and she dabbles in photography. She blogs at Dance in a Triangle. Her opinions are her own.
Day: Fourteen
This image is free of copyrights. Feel free to use this image to raise awareness about gender based violence.
Day Fourteen features a photograph by the BB team.
Fists Don’t Listen
by Abdul Halik Azeez
Fists don’t listen in my blurry state
I’m a dog without a home
My psyche can’t love; slave to a world
that never throws me a bone
The system rules the outer world
My task is your sustenance
The system makes me sub human
And my mind is past its penance
No, my fists can’t hear your blurry love
My fists are our survival
I’m angered by your garb of innocence
With no jungle nor a rival
So I beat and beat away from me
How incorrect can I prove you?
And somewhere inside I know it’s wrong
But ‘right’ is nothing I am used to
The economy’s gotten my humanity
My failings have gotten my heart
And what’s left of my morality
has gone without a spark
An animal inside human flesh
A clam a parrot an idle jest
Life is just a lark
And all I see is dark
The poem was inspired by a news clipping i read long ago about a retired champion heavy weight boxer. His son had given an interview saying that his father would come home drunk some nights and slam his mother (the boxer’s wife) with a combination. Anyone who’s watched boxing knows the power a heavyweight puts into a hard combination (a series of hard punches meant to destroy an enemy). Now imagine that combination slamming into soft, yielding flesh. imagine them pulping brittle bone. The bone of a person that loves you, or they would have undeniably left by now. I think men who beat their wives do so out of a sense of deep frustration about they way they are treated in the world. About how their illusions of reality don’t play out the way they think they should. Their ambitions are thwarted again and again and they have no moral or spiritual framework to release the tension. It is undoubtedly a failing of the man concerned, but it is also a societal disease, this shouldn’t happen in a healthy God fearing society.
Halik
Watch this blog for the next 2 days. We’ll be posting a featured photograph each day till 10 December as part of WMC campaign against GBV.
For more information about this campaign click here
The photograph concept was thought up by Halik– a board member of Beyond Borders. With the help of the BB team, a borrowed camera, bad lighting and a few doughnuts- the featured photograph was captured. Halik is a board member of Beyond Borders and blogs here when he is not bumming out or being a journalist/economist.
Day: Twelve
This image is free of copyrights. Feel free to use this image to raise awareness about gender based violence.
Text can be changed.
Day twelve features a photograph by Salaf Tegal.
‘Violence’ is a harsh word. On hearing the phrase ‘violence against women’ what comes to mind may be brutal images of- an acid burnt face, a severed limb, a broken bone or a black eye. Those are the more apparent forms of abuse. Equally horrendous but less visible is verbal abuse.
Many women are subjected to mental trauma- whether it’s their husbands, fathers or employers who issue the verbal onslaught. Derided daily in abusive and foul language most of these women believe they are worthless.
Recognising the severity of verbal abuse and the long term mental impact it has on women, Women In Need (WIN) provide counselling and other relevant services for victims of verbal abuse. Of the victims who have walked through their doors, WIN says they are severely psychologically affected.
All human beings deserve to be treated with respect.
Watch this blog for the next 5 days. We’ll be posting a featured photograph each day till 10 December as part of WMC campaign against GBV.
For more information about this campaign click here
Salaf Tegal is a guest contributor. He’s currently studying at Raffles- Malaysia, he’s an artist and photographer, more of his work can be found here.
Day: Eleven
This image is free of copyrights. Feel free to use this image to raise awareness about gender based violence.
Day eleven features a photograph by T.
In our homes, on our roads, in our classrooms and at our workplaces, women and men are subject to harassment, abuse and injury on a daily basis. A reported 60% of women suffer from domestic violence; simple extrapolation suggests that all of us are victim to some form of gender based violence.
And yet, we remain silent. The woman who speaks out is too much; she was asking for it. The man who speaks out is a coward; he couldn’t take it like a man. We are told to keep it to ourselves, it’s no one else’s business, it is shameful, it is our fault.
So we do not see it, we do not hear it, and we do not speak of it. And it continues.
Speak out today. Talk about what you’ve heard, write about what you’ve seen. Point fingers, name names. The shame is not ours, it is theirs. For unless we speak now, it will be too late.
– T
Watch this blog for the next 6 days. We’ll be posting a featured photograph each day till 10 December as part of WMC campaign against GBV.
For more information about this campaign click here
T is a member of the steering committee of Beyond Borders. She works in the development sector and has mad culinary skills. She’s a writer, a poet and she dabbles in photography. She blogs at Dance in a Triangle. Her opinions are her own.
Day: Ten
This image is free of copyrights. Feel free to use this image to raise awareness about gender based violence.
Day Ten features a photograph by Hyshyama Hanim.
Call it what it is. Despite decades of grappling with gender based violence issues, the world still lies to itself, culture still sets up excuses, society still believes in myths around abuse, violence and discrimination of women. You and I are still trying to understand its root cause. No it is not her so-called meekness, his so-called inherent anger, her dress, his alcoholism, her behavior, his lust. It is perceived ‘power’. This fueled by patriarchal ideology, fermented in societal practice and belief. To eliminate it, is to start from the root. Call it what it is.
– Hyshyama
Watch this blog for the next 7 days. We’ll be posting a featured photograph each day till 10 December as part of WMC campaign against GBV.
For more information about this campaign click here
Hyshyama is a guest contributor. She loves ink sketching and is pretty good with a camera. She blogs here. Her opinions are her own.
Day: Nine
This image is free of copyrights. Feel free to use this image to raise awareness about gender based violence.
Day nine features a photograph by Megara Tegal.
In most cases of Gender Based Violence, be it street harassment, rape or domestic violence, women don’t seek help. The reason for this may be anything from feeling at fault for what happened to them or not having faith in the police or justice system.
Unfortunately, as long as women don’t speak up and they continue to suffer in silence gender based violence will be prevail in the world. It’s time we broke that silence.
Watch this blog for the next 8 days. We’ll be posting a featured photograph each day till 10 December as part of WMC campaign against GBV.
For more information about this campaign click here
Megara Tegal is a member of the steering committee of Beyond Borders. She’s a journalist, a student and a tree-hugging hippy. She blogs here- The Puppeteer. Her opinions are her own.
Day Eight
This image is free of copyrights. Feel free to use this image to raise awareness about gender based violence.
Day eight features a photograph by Abdul Halik Azeez.
Use A Dictionary. The genders often speak in different languages. A word that sounds harsh and coarse can actually denote love and tenderness when translated though the specific emotional and situational context your counterpart is in. Practice patience and empathy, understand the multifaceted meaning and not merely the shallow word. Distrust your ears, trust your heart.
– Halik
Watch this blog for the next 9 days. We’ll be posting a featured photograph each day till 10 December as part of WMC campaign against GBV.
For more information about this campaign click here
Halik is a board member of Beyond Borders. He blogs here. His opinions are his own.
Day: Seven
This image is free of copyrights. Feel free to use this image to raise awareness about gender based violence.
Day Seven features a photograph by Sara Kellapatha.
Every year, large numbers of Sri Lankan women travel to countries in the Middle East to be employed as housemaids and in doing so, they leave behind their families, most often husbands and children. What some of them may not know is that the female children in these families are often subject to sexual abuse and rape by their fathers. These girls are very young, sometimes as young as nine. And they are left helpless, silent screams pounding in their heads. Often, they will not take any action, except tell their tales to a relative or friend. But nothing ever happens. The father will come home and ensure that his daughter is subject to these vile actions. How horrible must these young girls feel? For their own father to touch them in places they will feel uncomfortable. For their own father to rape them repeatedly. This is an issue which should be addressed largely in Sri Lanka.
– Sarah
Watch this blog for the next 10 days. We’ll be posting a featured photograph each day till 10 December as part of WMC campaign against GBV.
For more information about this campaign click here
Sarah is a member of Beyond Borders Forum Theatre group. She’s a freelance journalist, food columnist and she blogs www.turquoisecupcakes.wordpress.com. Her opinions are her own.
Beyond Borders Sri Lanka 