Interdisciplinary Seminar:
Education for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
Convener: Kathy Mumford, Australia
Culture-specific violence
and intervention
Sunanda Koushik, Indian Federation of University Women’s Associations
- Violence against women is culture-specific. Often, the victim of violence herself does not consider it so.
- Socially created dependence of women on men is often enjoyed by the woman as a matter of convenience. Other ideals of not parting until death lead women to continue a bad marital relationship for years, in effect losing track of her own strengths and a sense of independent identity.
- The paper examines the nature of age-specific identity of married women from all income groups.
- The impact of computerization and globalization on marital relationships in India is also examined from available data in family courts and clinical settings.
- The IFUW Resolution 12/2004 for elimination of violence specific to women is a very tall order. A more realistic strategy is to control violence against women
- In this event the various agencies that work towards this goal and the effectiveness of their intervention must be carefully examined. These agencies are classified as Governmental intervention and directives, and intervention by welfare institutions for women. Many of these have developed innovative techniques of intervention to provide remedial insights to victims of violence.
- On the basis of the success stories, the paper draws out an agenda for a country to control family violence and other forms of violence against women
Dr Sunanda Koushik holds a PhD from Pune University. Retiring as Director of the Karve Institute of Social Service, Pune in 1999, she continues academic activity as a PhD Guide (Social Work) at the University of Pune, and is associated with nine Universities as Examiner and Subject Expert for Staff Selection Committees. She has extensive experience as a researcher for and adviser to government and UN agencies, and is currently a member of the Ethics Committee of the National AIDS Research Institute and Hon. Secretary to the University Women’s Association of Pune, of which she is a Life Member.