Gender and Human Rights : Narratives on Macro-Micro Realities

Contents: 1. Introduction: Gender and Human Rights-Some Critical Issues/B.C. Barik, Pushpesh Kumar and Usha S. Sarode. 2. Dominant Ideologies and gender concerns; A Fresh look at the uniform civil code debate/Flavia Agnes. 3. Growing violence against women: issues and strategies/Vibhuti Patel. 4. Sexual harassment at workplace/Renuka Mukadam and Prachi Patwardhan. 5. The Violence of Stigmatization/Meena Saraswathi Seshu. 6. Location and articulation of reproductive and sexual rights: whose rights? Whose claims?/Meena Gopal. 7. Reproductive health rights and gender bias: Perceptions of rural women/Anjali Kulkarni. 8. Undertrial women prisoners and human rights/Smriti Bhosle. 9. Domestic violence: Analysis of the strategies/Priyadershini Pawar. 10. Women’s Rights and the question of culture: The Ho Tribe of Jharkhand/Ritambhara Hebbar. 11. Customary Practices and Human rights of tribal women/Anjana. 12. Tribal women health issues in human rights perspective: some insights form Gujarat Ratnawali and Sudarshan Iyengar. Index.

The book incorporates voices of women from margins, viz., women in prostitution, queer women, tribal women and minority women, in understanding gendered violence and sex-based discrimination. It attempts to address a range of issues such as dangers of Uniform civil code, debate in a communally charged climate, harassment at workplace and cultures of violence nurtured and legitimized through dress code, sex and job segregations. The discussion goes around the dehumanizing vocabulary used by mainstream for women-in-prostitution and the latter’s collective agency in resisting and rejecting this dominant formulation. Violence done to sex workers by combining and confusing sexual rights with reproductive rights is delineated with nuanced understanding. The powerlessness of rural women in making reproductive choices and accessing desired contraception with the naïve health staff interested in mechanical implementation of health programmes and the gross violations of rights of women prisoners are other issues of concern discussed in the book. Several essays take stock of violation of tribal women’s rights both within community and through negligence shown by state machineries. (Jacket)