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“Am I Really A Rape Victim?” It’s Time We Face Some Unheard Stories: CREA Contest Winning Entry

By Youth Ki Awaaz in Latest
22nd September, 2013

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The following article is a winning entry in the CREA contest on “Violence And Women: What Remains Unseen “

By  Trippayar Sahasranaman Priyaa:

“Dear diary,
The whole country might stand as one against the crime, yet the eyes of my relatives said it all. I hear people whisper in each other’s ears when they see me walk across the street. The government may hang them or castrate them but what they plucked out of my life can never be restored.”

– From the diary of a rape victim who survived the storm yet struggles in its aftermath.

rapes

“I make my living by selling myself, and if I report that I was raped, the society would rather laugh at me. But today I feel dominated, subdued and humiliated, which I never felt when I did what my job needed me to do. It’s about the life long suffering that my mind will undergo, after those horrible eleven minutes.”

– From the heart of a newly made tongue tied slave, whom the world calls ‘prostitute.’

“Who said that girls alone can be victims? Today I learnt that men should be scared of other men too. If my father or mother had taken the care to explain everything to me explicitly as they did with my sister, today I wouldn’t have fallen a prey to the senior boys who left the lower half of mine bleeding and my mental peace shattered forever.”

-The words of a school boy in a world where ignorance is no longer bliss.

“Only three years of sentence for a juvenile? That is sure to promote juvenile crimes. What he learnt in 16 years cannot be unlearnt in three years.”

– A country that is petrified after the judge’s decision for Nirbhaya’s case.

“Dear diary,
It only took me five minutes to shatter the relationship that I built for the last three years. I respect my parents and the bonds that I forged with them are the only reason for me allowing him to tie the knot- It is ‘He’ who I respected as God from the day I married Him until five minutes ago. All that I needed was a little bit of time, to get accustomed to the fact that I am his wife. Yet, He couldn’t wait.
I wonder if I can consider myself on par with Nirbhaya, yet the rapist is my husband. I cannot report this to anybody, not even tell my parents, as they wouldn’t agree with my views on life. I don’t know if I can be called a rape-victim, but all my life my heart will tell me that I am one.”

– From the diary of a lady married to someone else at heart, and raped by her so called husband.

“I filed a rape case on him today, but actually we had consensual sex after he promised to marry me. Today he is behind the bars as he refused to marry me. Am I really a rape victim? My parents told me so.”

– A girl from the society that is confused about culture and morality.

You must be to comment.

  1. Ashish

    Great way to depict different aspects of rape! Good job

  2. Vaishali Jain

    Rightly declared the winning entry.

  3. Raj

    “I filed a rape case on him today, but actually we had consensual sex after he promised to marry me. Today he is behind the bars as he refused to marry me. Am I really a rape victim? My parents told me so.”

    – A CRIMINAL who has ruined a man’s life, who deserves to be severely punished

    @Author : What’s wrong with you? Are you going to start calling terrorists as pakistani freedom fighters?

    1. Raj

      And @CREA : I understand you people are pro-feminist and all , but must you gloss over such criminal activities to achieve your ends? Is your hatred against men so much that it triumphs basic human decency ?

    2. ReplierToAHarshComment

      And @Raj about your comment to CREA, there is no aspect about feminism to CREA, and the competition was not intended to get back at men at all. It was to bring up the unseen aspects about rape. It was intended to collect different opinions about the same and to find out what people(men and women) lack in our country when it comes to violence against women. I guess little understanding of the topic and our intention has made you go way beyond your limits.

    3. Raj

      Oh really? You casually call a CRIMINAL a “confused girl” and portray her as a victim. Whereas she is a CRIMINAL who has lodged a false rape case and destroyed a man’s life and his family too. You people are the ones going being any limits of decency. Call her out for what she really is.

      And I have seen CREA’s website and submissions. I find them with a feminist bent and many of them are anti-male, either explicitly by blaming the entire male gender or implicitly by ignoring the plight of men. Please take a look at your own “winning entries”. Don’t wash your hands off them, after all it was your group that judged and promoted these articles.

    4. ReplyToAHarshComment

      @Raj : The title is “unseen stories” and nobody is saying that you have to sympathize with such a person who has filed a rape! There are so many aspects to rape in our country, some are filed by a person with no actual basis! The author is trying to hint at that.

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An ambassador and trained facilitator under Eco Femme (a social enterprise working towards menstrual health in south India), Sanjina is also an active member of the MHM Collective- India and Menstrual Health Alliance- India. She has conducted Menstrual Health sessions in multiple government schools adopted by Rotary District 3240 as part of their WinS project in rural Bengal. She has also delivered training of trainers on SRHR, gender, sexuality and Menstruation for Tomorrow’s Foundation, Vikramshila Education Resource Society, Nirdhan trust and Micro Finance, Tollygunj Women In Need, Paint It Red in Kolkata.

Now as an MH Fellow with YKA, she’s expanding her impressive scope of work further by launching a campaign to facilitate the process of ensuring better menstrual health and SRH services for women residing in correctional homes in West Bengal. The campaign will entail an independent study to take stalk of the present conditions of MHM in correctional homes across the state and use its findings to build public support and political will to take the necessary action.

Saurabh has been associated with YKA as a user and has consistently been writing on the issue MHM and its intersectionality with other issues in the society. Now as an MHM Fellow with YKA, he’s launched the Right to Period campaign, which aims to ensure proper execution of MHM guidelines in Delhi’s schools.

The long-term aim of the campaign is to develop an open culture where menstruation is not treated as a taboo. The campaign also seeks to hold the schools accountable for their responsibilities as an important component in the implementation of MHM policies by making adequate sanitation infrastructure and knowledge of MHM available in school premises.

Read more about his campaign.

Harshita is a psychologist and works to support people with mental health issues, particularly adolescents who are survivors of violence. Associated with the Azadi Foundation in UP, Harshita became an MHM Fellow with YKA, with the aim of promoting better menstrual health.

Her campaign #MeriMarzi aims to promote menstrual health and wellness, hygiene and facilities for female sex workers in UP. She says, “Knowledge about natural body processes is a very basic human right. And for individuals whose occupation is providing sexual services, it becomes even more important.”

Meri Marzi aims to ensure sensitised, non-discriminatory health workers for the needs of female sex workers in the Suraksha Clinics under the UPSACS (Uttar Pradesh State AIDS Control Society) program by creating more dialogues and garnering public support for the cause of sex workers’ menstrual rights. The campaign will also ensure interventions with sex workers to clear misconceptions around overall hygiene management to ensure that results flow both ways.

Read more about her campaign.

MH Fellow Sabna comes with significant experience working with a range of development issues. A co-founder of Project Sakhi Saheli, which aims to combat period poverty and break menstrual taboos, Sabna has, in the past, worked on the issue of menstruation in urban slums of Delhi with women and adolescent girls. She and her team also released MenstraBook, with menstrastories and organised Menstra Tlk in the Delhi School of Social Work to create more conversations on menstruation.

With YKA MHM Fellow Vineet, Sabna launched Menstratalk, a campaign that aims to put an end to period poverty and smash menstrual taboos in society. As a start, the campaign aims to begin conversations on menstrual health with five hundred adolescents and youth in Delhi through offline platforms, and through this community mobilise support to create Period Friendly Institutions out of educational institutes in the city.

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A student from Delhi School of Social work, Vineet is a part of Project Sakhi Saheli, an initiative by the students of Delhi school of Social Work to create awareness on Menstrual Health and combat Period Poverty. Along with MHM Action Fellow Sabna, Vineet launched Menstratalk, a campaign that aims to put an end to period poverty and smash menstrual taboos in society.

As a start, the campaign aims to begin conversations on menstrual health with five hundred adolescents and youth in Delhi through offline platforms, and through this community mobilise support to create Period Friendly Institutions out of educational institutes in the city.

Find out more about the campaign here.

A native of Bhagalpur district – Bihar, Shalini Jha believes in equal rights for all genders and wants to work for a gender-equal and just society. In the past she’s had a year-long association as a community leader with Haiyya: Organise for Action’s Health Over Stigma campaign. She’s pursuing a Master’s in Literature with Ambedkar University, Delhi and as an MHM Fellow with YKA, recently launched ‘Project अल्हड़ (Alharh)’.

She says, “Bihar is ranked the lowest in India’s SDG Index 2019 for India. Hygienic and comfortable menstruation is a basic human right and sustainable development cannot be ensured if menstruators are deprived of their basic rights.” Project अल्हड़ (Alharh) aims to create a robust sensitised community in Bhagalpur to collectively spread awareness, break the taboo, debunk myths and initiate fearless conversations around menstruation. The campaign aims to reach at least 6000 adolescent girls from government and private schools in Baghalpur district in 2020.

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A psychologist and co-founder of a mental health NGO called Customize Cognition, Ritika forayed into the space of menstrual health and hygiene, sexual and reproductive healthcare and rights and gender equality as an MHM Fellow with YKA. She says, “The experience of working on MHM/SRHR and gender equality has been an enriching and eye-opening experience. I have learned what’s beneath the surface of the issue, be it awareness, lack of resources or disregard for trans men, who also menstruate.”

The Transmen-ses campaign aims to tackle the issue of silence and disregard for trans men’s menstruation needs, by mobilising gender sensitive health professionals and gender neutral restrooms in Lucknow.

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A Computer Science engineer by education, Nitisha started her career in the corporate sector, before realising she wanted to work in the development and social justice space. Since then, she has worked with Teach For India and Care India and is from the founding batch of Indian School of Development Management (ISDM), a one of its kind organisation creating leaders for the development sector through its experiential learning post graduate program.

As a Youth Ki Awaaz Menstrual Health Fellow, Nitisha has started Let’s Talk Period, a campaign to mobilise young people to switch to sustainable period products. She says, “80 lakh women in Delhi use non-biodegradable sanitary products, generate 3000 tonnes of menstrual waste, that takes 500-800 years to decompose; which in turn contributes to the health issues of all menstruators, increased burden of waste management on the city and harmful living environment for all citizens.

Let’s Talk Period aims to change this by

Find out more about her campaign here.

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A former Assistant Secretary with the Ministry of Women and Child Development in West Bengal for three months, Lakshmi Bhavya has been championing the cause of menstrual hygiene in her district. By associating herself with the Lalana Campaign, a holistic menstrual hygiene awareness campaign which is conducted by the Anahat NGO, Lakshmi has been slowly breaking taboos when it comes to periods and menstrual hygiene.

A Gender Rights Activist working with the tribal and marginalized communities in india, Srilekha is a PhD scholar working on understanding body and sexuality among tribal girls, to fill the gaps in research around indigenous women and their stories. Srilekha has worked extensively at the grassroots level with community based organisations, through several advocacy initiatives around Gender, Mental Health, Menstrual Hygiene and Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) for the indigenous in Jharkhand, over the last 6 years.

Srilekha has also contributed to sustainable livelihood projects and legal aid programs for survivors of sex trafficking. She has been conducting research based programs on maternal health, mental health, gender based violence, sex and sexuality. Her interest lies in conducting workshops for young people on life skills, feminism, gender and sexuality, trauma, resilience and interpersonal relationships.

A Guwahati-based college student pursuing her Masters in Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Bidisha started the #BleedwithDignity campaign on the technology platform Change.org, demanding that the Government of Assam install
biodegradable sanitary pad vending machines in all government schools across the state. Her petition on Change.org has already gathered support from over 90000 people and continues to grow.

Bidisha was selected in Change.org’s flagship program ‘She Creates Change’ having run successful online advocacy
campaigns, which were widely recognised. Through the #BleedwithDignity campaign; she organised and celebrated World Menstrual Hygiene Day, 2019 in Guwahati, Assam by hosting a wall mural by collaborating with local organisations. The initiative was widely covered by national and local media, and the mural was later inaugurated by the event’s chief guest Commissioner of Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) Debeswar Malakar, IAS.

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