Media Reporting on vulnerability, sexual minority and HIV&AIDS

I stopped buying Indian Express as I felt that it no longer covered issues that I thought were relevant. For me working in the field of Sexual Reproductive Health & RIGHTS and HIV&AIDS it was important that social issues like livelihood, violence and abuse (against women, sexual minorities, and other vulnerable marginalized groups), empowerment, poverty alleviation etc. be addressed through media and reports, so that the wider civil society reads it empathizes with these issues and voluntarily comes forward to fight against it.

I did feel that these were issues not being covered by Indian Express. And in Orissa the choices of getting a newspaper which is impartial, unbaised is very limited. One of my close friends who knows me and my eccentricities gave me his subscription of Indian Express and asked me to go through it for a month. Surprises! Surprises, I loved it. In the month of February and March it covered a range of issues starting from crimes against women to the limited option of women having to chose between safety and freedom to sexual minorities issues. I had to eat my words about this newspaper. I have again started subscribing the newspaper. I am sharing one on Status of women for all my friends to read:

ORISSA Ranks high in crimes against women/Sunday/March8 2009/Page II
by Sanjeev Kumar Patro.

According to the latest National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB) Orissa is placed 11th in the list of States ranked as per crimes against women and has accounted for 4% of such incidences recorded nationally. THe most disturbing fact is that nearly three women were being raped in the State every 24 hours. The cases under the Dowry Probibition Act have risen stupendously outscoring the national trend. With an increase of 25 percent nationally, Orissa alone accounts for one fourth of the cases. Suicides by women have risen by six percent in the state. Category wise, 71 women have ended their lives owing to dowry abuse or harassment in 2007, 14 for not conceiving, and 20 for the reason of cancellation of their marriage, an offshoot of probable dowry cause in 2007. Eleven women took to suicide to excape from terminal diseases like cancer against nil in males. this aspect highlights the economic subservience status of women in our society as treatment for diseseases scuh as cancer are considered to be costly. As many as 28 women committed suicide owing to divorce against nil in males, which is the third highest in the country. WIth 15 suicides owing to illegal pregnancies, Orissa is number two in the country with as high as 53 women in the State cutting short their lives owing to illicit relations.

Shame on us, that we still have not been able to provide freedom and safety to women in Orissa. And we in Odisha have still not understood why gender based budgeting is important to protect and keep women safe and free from discrimination in Orissa.

Sarita