By Patricia Mukhim
November 25 is observed as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. This 16-day activism culminates on December 10 which is International Human Rights Day. Global statistics tell us that one out of three women are subjected to some form of violence and mostly within their own families. In 2012 half of the women killed worldwide were killed by their partners or members of their families. It sounds unfamiliar but facts don’t lie. Statistics relating to violence against women would be even more stark in India where women continue to be burnt for not paying enough dowry; they are murdered for choosing to marry outside their castes; they are tortured for not producing sons etc., The list goes on.
Coming to Meghalaya, one of those rare states in the country and perhaps in the world where the indigenous tribes still continue with the practice of matriliny, it would sound incongruous at first look to even suggest that women here face any kind of violence. Khasi and Garo matriliny has been romanticised by visitors and scholars from around the world. It is only in recent years that the outside world has become aware that not everything is hunky dory for women here. The rape statistics alone are enough to expose the lie that this is a society where women rule the roost. And the fact that most rapes here are committed on girl-children aged 5-10 years is gross enough to tell us that there is something stinking about this society.
There are several forms of violence against women but to my mind the fact that women face grave insecurities inside a marital relationship is a mental and emotional violence that eats at the vitals of any society. It has been stated times without number that marital relationships among the tribes whether it be by co-habitation or by a legal or religious solemnisation continues to be tenuous. A man can abandon/divorce his wife/partner at any point in their married life and she has absolutely no protection by way of maintenance for herself and her children unless her husband/partner can be held accountable by the courts and is forced to pay a monthly settlement out of his salary. But there are several cases where men don’t comply with court orders and there is little that the woman can do. In cases of cohabitation where the live-in relationship hangs by a string the insecurity of the woman is even more acute. There are several case studies where women have been abandoned and have had to look after their children single-handedly. Women in the Khasi-Pnar-Garo society can no longer look up to their clan members for succour. They might get some emotional support and occasionally some financial help but that will not take them too far. Many such women are driven to commercial sex to make ends meet. And once they take up this “ignoble” profession their families and society ostracise them and label them as “prostitutes,” “call girls” and many such pejorative names without caring to understand what drives women to adopt such desperate moves. Very few women can come out of a ‘broken’ relationship unscathed. For many it is a lifelong scar and a burden they carry single-handedly.
Another form of violence against women in Meghalaya’s tribal society is having to cope with an alcoholic husband who drinks away half his salary, comes home to inflict violence on his wife and children and then dies prematurely (average age 40-45 years) leaving his family to eke out a desperate living for themselves. The Government of Meghalaya finds that the number of employed men in its rolls who die of alcoholism and whose wives or children are then given compassionate employment in place of the deceased has spiralled to the point that it is not possible to extend further compassion. Last heard was that the Government has done away with employment on compassionate grounds.
The trauma of being members of a society where marriage is so brittle is that women often remarry with the hope that the second time they would be lucky to find a man who would look after their mental, physical and financial needs. Hence their children from the first marriage are forced to accept a stepfather in their life. There have been many cases where a stepfather rapes his stepdaughter here in Meghalaya. Sometimes the stepdaughter has even become pregnant and delivered a child. Earlier such cases were hushed up for fear of shame and social ostracism. These days thanks to presence of the State Commission for Women and women NGOs, the rape survivors are able to tell their horror stories and seek redress. I recall the recent case of a young girl from Garo Hills whose stepfather not only raped her repeatedly but finally even killed her. These gruesome stories from a matrilineal society sound unbelievable but they are real case studies.
The other kind of violence against women is their having no control over their wombs and how many children they wish to have. While this choice may be available to educated women who because of their financial independence are in a position to negotiate safe sex, the poor, illiterate or semi-literate woman in the rural outback cannot even start a conversation with her husband about spacing of children through family planning methods. My own experience after talking to several women in the different villages of Meghalaya is that women think they can keep their husbands only if they allow him to have unlimited sex. They are of the mistaken belief that sex is the glue that would bind them to the man. As a result women living even within the villages of East Khasi Hills have as many as 7, 8 or 10 children. They are already poor and unable to give each child the best care and nutrition leave alone send them to school. The children live a miserable life and have to take care of their siblings. It’s not a very happy situation to be child in such a situation. Guess what happens to the girl-children in such families. By the time they reach the age of 13-14 years they want to break free and that breaking free means only one thing – get married. The problems are just reinforced thereafter. It’s a vicious cycle that is so difficult to break! Unfortunately, interventions from health care givers have been weak and ineffective despite the grand sounding schemes from the Health Ministry, Government of India.
Our tribal society is quick to see everything as a taboo. Discussing sex and sexual relations is a No, No subject yet our children are experimenting with sex and becoming pregnant and often want to abort the child but have no place to go to and no one to share their story with. But try and talk to parents and elders about condom use and they will get squeamish as if the word condom is itself a taboo if not a sin. But a time has come when colleges and universities might have to have condom dispensing machines. That would be safer than for a young woman to become pregnant before time and miss out a bright academic future. The fact that we have so many taboos in our society around the issue of sex is also a kind of mental violence against women for they have to bear the brunt of a bad sexual encounter that leads to pregnancy.
When speaking about family planning and the adoption of family planning methods, it is always women who are the targets for tubectomy procedures. Most men refuse vasectomy. In Meghalaya the argument of most men is that they cannot go through a vasectomy because if they happen to leave the present wife and marry another they would still need to produce kids. Fine argument! However, the same is true with the woman. She too feels that if she goes through a tubectomy procedure she might be the loser because if her first marriage breaks up and she remarries, she would have to produce kids from the second husband as well in order to be able to hold on to him.
In a situation where the institution of marriage or cohabitation is itself so fraught with uncertainties it is hard for a woman to develop the confidence to fight violence against herself and yet she has to do it so that the future generation of women do not encounter such traumas.
There is an urgent need for the elders of this society, for church and other religious bodies to meet and thrash out these thorny issues that women grapple with on a day to day basis. We need to find answers and solutions to this societal malady and not just discuss them on such symbolic days such as November 25.