No Country for Women

Ireland has come in for global criticism after Savita Halappanavar’s death, but the condition of women in India is surely worse.

Ireland has come in for global criticism after Savita Halappanavar’s death, but the condition of women in India is surely worse. At the launch of a recent 16-day campaign in Mumbai, called ‘Break the Silence against Violence,’ organised by Society for Nutrition, Education and Health Action (SNEHA), women’s activists and doctors gave a measure of how badly we fare in this regard. “About 300 women die in India every day during delivery or from unsafe abortions,” said Dr Duru Shah, a gynaecologist. When it comes to violence against women, the state ignores vulnerable sections like prostitutes. “It is not enough to say we want to end violence for respectable women; it has to be a commitment to end violence against all women,” says Bishakha Datta, co-founder of the NGO Point of View. The fortnight-long campaign will end on 10 December.

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Sharmeen Hakim Indorewala