The 10 Year Challenge that we haven’t cared about

Debarati Bhowmick is currently pursuing her post- graduation from Mumbai University. Dancing and writing are her passion. She writes short poems in my her time and she loves to interact with people from diverse backgrounds.

The 10 Year Challenge

As we know, social media was flooded with the famous 10 year challenge with people posting their pictures but is it all we know? So, here is my thought about the 10 year challenge we all should be concerned about. Here is a small insight to the same:

Homosexuality

In 2009, the Delhi high court had ruled that Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which criminalizes sex between adult homosexual men, was unconstitutional. While the government did not appeal the high court decision, a challenge on the grounds of public morality was filed by groups of religious bodies and individuals, including the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, the Apostolic Churches Alliance and the Utkal Christian Council. While in 2018, Supreme Court ruled section 377 as unconstitutional, legalizing homosexuality in India.

Gender Inequality

Gender inequality in India refers to health, education, economic and political inequalities between men and women in India. Various international gender inequality indices rank India differently on each of these factors, as well as on a composite basis, one of which is the Gender Gap Index.  According to report on gender gap index published by world economic forum in 2008, India stands at 113th rank (out of 130 countries).    

Whereas; according to reports published by the same organization in 2018 India stands at 108th rank (out of 149 countries)  

Rape

Rape is the fourth-most common crime against women in India. In 2009 about 21397 cases were reported. Whereas in 2018 about 68000 approximately cases reported. However, many cases related to rape crimes go unreported due to culture and safety of victims.  (source)

Dowry Death

A dowry death is the murder or suicide of a married woman caused by a dispute over her dowry. As per statistics; in 2008, 8172 dowry death cases were reported. In 2018, still as many as 5,000 dowry deaths are recorded each year.

Abduction

Abduction is another common crime committed against women. Kidnapping and abduction of women and girls incidentally saw a 163.8% increase from 14,506 cases in 2002 to 38,262 cases in 2012.

Crimes against Women

In 2007, about 1, 85,312 crimes against women were recorded; whereas in 2016, on and about 3,38,954 crimes against women were recorded. Again the fact being these numbers are based on the cases reported. In many places the number of the actual cases varies as they are not reported due to various reasons.

Sexual Harassment at the Workplace

Amongst all the twenty-two countries covered by the IPSOS – Reuters survey (2009), India recorded highest incidence of sexual harassment. Similarly, Center for Transforming India survey (2010) revealed that nearly 88 percent of women witnessed some form of workplace sexual harassment during the course of their work. (source) Registered cases of sexual harassment at Indian workplaces increased 54% from 371 in 2014 to 570 in 2017, according to official data. Over the first seven months of 2018, ending July 27, 533 cases of sexual harassment were reported across the country, as per the data.(source)

Women in the Labour Force (organised and unorganised sector)

The number of women working in rural India is declining at a greater pace than that among women in the urban workforce. Sustained high economic growth since the early 1990’s has led to improved education and health indicators among India’s women. Yet, women accounted for no more than 25% of the labour force in 2011-12, declining from 33% in 2005, according to national sample survey report (2014) on employment.

Its 2019 and we are still looking at the brighter side and ignoring the dark section of the society. There have been instances where we should be ashamed to say that we are living in a modern society , all because of the mentality that prevails in the society.

We still have people around us ignorant of the fact that there are some of us who are in pain . It’s not always how it seems to be like. It’s time we take up the challenge and make a better and equal society wherein the women are safer and there is equality.

Let’s just make beautiful memories to pass on to our future generations and not wounds to show them. Let’s make our surrounding a better place to live in.

There are a lot of factors to be considered other than the ones stated above which have either evolved or diminished within years.

The real challenge now for us is to check on ourselves and see where we have headed to!

Opinions are of the writer.