The Journey ahead......

Pink little ribbons dangled from her braid, the laced pink frock danced around her hips, the bright yellow shoes sparkled in the night light, and I couldn't resist a smile when I saw that baby girl. Childhood is a celebration of life for most of us. It is always filled with rosy memories of fun and laughter. It is not surprising when most of us long for those care-free days, those days of endless playtime and delight, those days of abundance and happiness. You never had to worry about anything, there was always someone to take care of you, feed you when you were hungry, buy you new and exciting things to play with and you always had someone to hear you out and help you.  But when you look far and beyond, you realize that the rosy tales of childhood memories are not for everyone. For many children their childhood has been a daunting experience.

Many young girls grew up with no toys to play with, no new clothes to wear, no proper food and medicine, and with no proper access to education. They grew up learning and doing the little household chores, fetching buckets of water from the nearby pond or well. Eventually these girls grew up and lived their life even without realizing the abundant possibilities outside their little world. And some of them probably grew up and led silent abusive lives within their establishment unaware of the opportunities that lay outside. All of this would have never happened only if the family or the society around was educated enough to understand the power women symbolize today. A girl child is often taken for granted and is deprived from many of the little pleasures. The negligence of a girl child in the early days slowly transforms in the later stages as abuse on women. Abuse on women is lurking around every corner, at home, at work, in the bus, in the train, and frighteningly it has crept into every aspect of daily life, making each day a herculean challenge to sail through.

It frightens me sometimes to watch the news channels or read the newspaper columns, there is not a single day without a mention of some form of abuse on women and children. The exploitation of women has sadly been on the rise of late. With gruesome stories making its way into the public every day, it makes me wonder if we are anyway close to becoming a super power by 2020.

The laurels, the achievements, the technological advancements, the breakthrough discoveries seem meaningless when the women of the land are not treated with dignity.

The need of the hour is stringent law against the people who assault women. Only when we have a strong judicial system in place, the crime doers will think twice before indulging in any mistreatment. The accessibility to justice should be made easier, the burden or the trauma of a civil procedure should not haunt a victim from seeking justice.

Creating a strong legal, fool proof platform will probably take its due course, but that cannot stop us from addressing this issue now. Let the law take it own course, but, as responsible citizens of this country there are many other things which we can exercise from our end.

In today’s world of technology and information education still seems a distant dream to many children, and specifically to the girl child. Education is not about stacking degrees and certificates; it is a process of learning and understanding the world around us. Education is a way of channelising your mind to understand the world around you better and to be a more active contributor to it. When you are educated, you know when injustice is meted out to you and you know the platforms and the means to seek justice. Whereas an uneducated women on the other hand is taken for granted and she will never probably realize that she could have undone the injustice shown to her. Every girl child must be educated, she must be taught about a world outside, about the numerous possibilities, she must be educated and well informed about what the society holds for her and how she can be an active part of it. NGO’s and government organisations and several private contributors have made tremendous contribution to the empowerment of women. But today it is not enough if only these people do their part, it is the moral duty of every citizen to ensure that he or she in some way will help or contribute.

Educating women and enlightening them about their civil and legal rights alone does not win the game, it is also an equal responsibility of everybody else to understand their role in women empowerment. The environment, the people around, everything has to be conducive enough for women to stand tall and proud and above all feel safe in our society.

So let us promise, that from this day on we still strive towards a better tomorrow, a better platform for the future women of our family and our society.

Women are the delicate part of the society, they are the gentle and the lovely part of mankind, they bring in different abilities and skills with them, and it is time we took care of them, nurtured them and promised them a safe, happy and prosperous future.