International Women’s Day is an occasion to inspire dalit women to struggle for rights and march forward. International women’s day is celebrated throughout the world to commemorate the dignity and worth of woman. In the working area of DSS every private and governmental organization celebrate March 8th, but without a right perspective of the purpose. Most of them celebrate the day to have some fun and an occasion to play womanly games and conduct competitions in womanly chores. But the idea behind the call of UN to commemorate International Women’s Day is to seriously recapitulate the struggles and achievements of Women and to march ahead towards complete equality and non-discrimination.
DSS takes this occasion as an opportunity to educate the dalit women about the status of women, the history of struggles and the achievements.DSS celebrates this day every year on themes relevant to downtrodden and working-class women.This year, “Dalit Women and Development” was selected as the theme to inspire the dalit women to claim their rightful share in the development process.In the country, so far, the development was exclusive of dalit and Adivasi women.Dalit women are now being mainstreamed and inspired to demand their share in all resources and as part of this ongoing struggles, DSS thought it fit to educate the dalit women about their present status and motivate them to fight against exclusion and
discrimination in the developmental process.
The meeting was conducted at Press Club, Vijayawada on 8th March 2019. DSS Programme manager Daniel Prakash presided over the meeting. Other resource persons that attended the meeting were: Sri. MokaSattiBabu, Additional S.P. and Project Director Rajiv Vidya Mission, Prof. A. Subrahmanyam, Retired Professor and Dean of Law, Acharya Nagarjuna University, Prof Samuel John, Sri. Rajamani, A.P. State Vice-President, DICCI, Dr. Padma, Sri Vijayalakshmi and Sri Jhansi Geddam.
The gist of Opinions Expressed by the Speakers are as follows:
·Dalit women have self-respect, courage and confidence and they can even protect males at times of necessity.
Unfortunately, the dalit women are discriminated and excluded from the developmental process. They are denied education and medical facilities.
The dalit girl children are abused and sexually exploited in schools.
Representation of dalit women in Parliament is very less.
Dalit women should be aware of the rights provided in the Constitution and fight for their implementation.
Dalit women should grow economically independent so that they can claim equality.
Dalit women should be aware of their bodily health and take nutritious food.
It is not correct to say problems of all women are same. It should be noted that the dalit women problems are separate and they face issues which are not common to all women. Oppression, untouchability, domestic violence faced by dalit women is not the same to every woman.
It is necessary to awaken the dalit men and the community in general for the upliftment of dalit women.
Dali women leaders and dalit women should be more enlightened to inspire and motivate the dalit women in the villages.
Dalit women should be aware of the budget allocations and various schemes meant for them and start independent businesses.
