Offtrack

Sons and sisters

by Trans World Features (TWF) 04 Aug 2014, 05:01 pm

Violence against women has reached unprecedented level in India today. Every sensitive section of the society is looking for a solution to curb the menace. MAVA, an NGO, has innovative programmes to involve men as equal partners in this effort. Shoma A. Chatterji reports

In 2006, three boys from a college in Jejuri in Maharashtra were served expulsion notices. They were harassing a lady student by playing lewd songs to her through their cell-phones. If the expulsion order was carried out, it would have stopped the harassment of the girl but would have destroyed the lives of the boys. Their lives would have led to crime and addiction. The volunteers of MAVA (Men Against Violence and Abuse) came to their rescue, using their ‘second-chance’ strategy of rehabilitation and mainstreaming of men who tend to commit or actually commit violence and abuse of girls and women. “Men are part of the solution, not part of the problem,” says Harish Sadani, 47, the brain behind MAVA.

Sadani, a graduate in social work from Tat Institute of Social Science, Mumbai, founded MAVA more than 20 years ago realising that men need to be made aware of why women should not face violence. Responding to what happened to those three boys, Sadani says, “Our volunteers pleaded with the college to reconsider and give the boys a chance to learn from their mistakes. The boys never misbehaved again and one of them ended the year topping the ranks as the college’s best NCC Cadet.”

Brought up in a community housing home, better known as chawl in Mumbai, Sadani witnessed the oppression and violence against women in his locality. This included domestic violence. “But the home environment for me worked in reverse and that’s what set me on this journey. My father didn’t have any gender bias and happily shared the household work . His two sisters, my aunts, influenced me without being screeching about it,” he says. His friends tease him often for sharing household chores or refusing to play with them. But he chose to ignore them.

Founded in 1993, MAVA decided to put in efforts that address how men can analyse perceptions of masculinity and deep-rooted patriarchy and create appropriate solutions. “I felt it was necessary to create positive role models among men to address the issue of gender violence on a broader and deeper scale. I felt engaging young men in this discourse would help create a gender-sensitive society,” says Sadani. This has resulted in shaping a men’s movement who have become a ‘part of the solution’, and help prevent gender-based violence on women.

The MAVA movement began interestingly with an advertisement in the print media in September 1991 that went, “WANTED: Men who believe wives are not for battering. If you are a man strongly opposed to violence towards wives from their husbands, and would like to help stop it, then send us your name, address and phone number, if you have one’.  Journalist C.Y. Gopinath had put out the appeal.  More than 200 men answered the ad, the youngest a 14-year-old and the oldest a 66-year- old senior citizen.  The group interacted for a year during which a core group of members emerged with Sadani taking the lead. MAVA was formed to deconstruct masculinity, help men break out of their dominant masculine image and help form an equal society that would regard women with respect.

“The challenge was to evolve a strategy that would involve young men who thought they had everything to gain from the dominant patriarchal system. So, when we went to Pune, wherever we went, we explained to young men how patriarchy was holding them back too,” says Sadani.  

In 2006, MAVA  launched ‘Friendship among youth” or Yuva Maitri (Marathi) an NGO, to engage young men in Pune to promote a healthy dialogue on gender, sexuality, masculinity and related issues. It began with 33 male students between the ages of 16 and 17 from six rural and semi-rural colleges in Pune district. They went through training on gender issues under a ‘personal change’ plan under the guidance of experts and sexologists and were introduced to youth-friendly and innovative tools like interactive workshops, awareness songs, posters, wall newspapers, film screenings and street theatre.

Ganesh Phule, 22, from Jejuri, defied all the male members of his family when they were trying to get his sister married against her wishes. He had been attending the sessions and later became a gender sensitivity instructor with Yuva Maitri.

This initiative has spread across Mumbai, Satara, Kolhapur and Jalgaon when MAVA began to partner with women’s organisations and local universities to conduct workshops and training sessions. Till date, Yuva Maitri has reached out to more than 60,000 young men through hundreds of interactive workshops, symposia, camps, and other community outreach programs. Some years ago, the youth initiative was featured as an example of ‘Best Practice in Public Service Delivery’ at the Government of India website. More than 5000 young women are also part of Yuva Maitri. In 2010, Yuva Maitri won the Ashoka Changemakers and Campus of Excellence Award.

In Mumbai, MAVA runs a telephone helpline (022-26826062) that responds to calls between 10 am  and 6 pm every day including holidays counselling callers on  dilemmas they might be facing in relationships. Eight to ten young volunteers between 21 and 30 from different professional backgrounds man the helpline. 

"Gender-based violence against women is a serious public health and human rights issue in India. The brutal rape of a health professional in a public bus in Delhi on December 16, 2012 has revealed a virtual Pandora’s Box of eve-teasing, molestation, sexual harassment, domestic violence, rape and murder across the country where in most cases, the offenders go scot-free.  These violations highlight how a woman’s right to a safe, violence-free environment is being violated. “Changing the male mindset” is a key aspect to promote women’s right to a violence-free world,” sums up Sadani.

 “Don’t tell your daughters not to step out at night; instead, teach your sons better”. That is the bottom line MAVA practices and preaches and does not believe in candle-light marches or other strategies that do not bring results.