Be Your Own Weapon

Be Your Own Weapon

After the unfortunate ‘Nirbhaya ’  incident followed by spurt in ‘crime against women’ the government was pushed to the corner for its inability to curb such ‘disasters’.

What followed amongst other measures was the directive by the govt. that ‘every organization employing women would need to organize adequate security arrangements for them’. The directives included some of the following :

1. Safe pick up & drop of the female employees if their shifts or work involves staying beyond late hours – Soon after this became a norm we heard of another infamous incident of ‘Dhaula Kuan Rape Case’ where the victim was kidnapped while she was walking back to her home after the drop was raped & dumped.
2. Govt took another ‘knee jerk reaction’ & made it compulsory for all organizations to ensure that a GPS was installed to monitor the movement & a security guard provided to escort specially the lady employees. Last pick & first drop became a norm too –On a personal interaction with umpteen users it came to light that most of the times the security personnel were nothing more than a mere ‘deterrence’ & that too weak one as they had little or no knowledge or training of what to do when things would go wrong. The GPS was a ‘reactionary measure, as it was not backed up with 24×7 control room & quick response team in most cases. Eventually the police had to be informed who have always had their own challenges in terms of efficiency & response.
3. At the corporate & industrial level ‘Sexual Harassment as Workplace Act’ was also implemented. The effectiveness of which remains debatable & subjective.
4. Finally the buck was passed on to the ‘victim’ or ‘probable victim’ & ‘Self Defence Training’ was made compulsory for all women employees atleast once in a year. A mention of the same was made in the Shop & Establishments Act across States  – A lot of proactive & employee centric organizations came forward & ensured such trainings from ‘professionals’ but there were some for who it was a mere ‘tick in the compliance list’ which saw mushrooming of ‘self proclaimed’ self defence instructors some went up to call themselves ‘Self Defence Experts’ with no understanding of the subject, irrelevant qualifications, lack of formal training & certifications.

Finally the onus of doing something about sexual harassment like eve teasing, inappropriate touching, molestation, rape etc.  lies with the probable victim. Now it is for her say ‘no’ , ‘act’ & ‘survive’ – NAS ! It won’t be wrong to say here that ‘between you & your perpetrator there is no one else but YOU. Everyone else is going to come later’. So ‘be your own weapon’! Real freedom is not merely unfurling the flag but unfurling our ‘I Dare..’ attitude! The freedom to ‘walk without fear’.

Next time I shall talk about ‘what is self defence  and how wrong or no training can put your life & honor in peril’.