"VOF Week 2: (SHARING THOUGHTS AND EXPERIENCES)."

SHARING THOUGHTS AND EXPERIENCES

Every woman has a special story woven around their world. These experiences could be pleasant or unpleasant. Whatever, is deeply engraved within themselves is a source of knowledge rich in experience that could be shared. It is the ability of this sharing and learning from others that inspired me to join this community.

I work with the most marginalized communities in the country – The IDPs and the communities within the plantation sector of the country. Most of the social problems in these communities are woven around poverty, and a prominent problem is violence on women. One of the major cause for such violence is the use of alcohol. The use of alcohol among men has been an excuse to abuse women – mentally and physically. I would like to term this as ‘alcohol related violence’, where alcohol is used as an excuse to violence. Men after the use of alcohol do take unfair privileges of using a substance that gives them an excuse to abuse women. In rational sense, people tend to believe that after the use of alcohol people are totally unconscious – could do anything and everything because they are senseless – but in reality you could see that these men can hit their wives or children whom they consider as inferior or objects, but they would not do the same, I mean physical hit or shout at a another stronger man – such as a village leader or a policeman. So where has the unconsciousness gone? So alcohol use is another tool used to abuse or oppress women. Women need not give the men this unfair privilege on a man after the use of alcohol saying, ‘he hit me because he is after the use of alcohol, if not he is ok, or alcohol makes him senseless etc, hence he is unconscious of his activities – as these statements provides them the undue privilege - of alcohol use as an excuse to hit their women.

So women needs to stand up against such abuses or agree on such statements, think critically and not be victims of excuses ‘that has no rationality’. This is what I would like to tell many women out there, who are faced with similar problems or encounter such problems when they work in communities. I am always ready to provide on information or technical expertise on counteracting such problems.

I strongly believe the ‘Voice of our Future’ will carry this message to many who are faced with this problem. My personal vision is to work against myths that promote the use of alcohol to abuse women, and to reveal the reality behind such violence. The ‘Voice of our Future’ is an inspiration to reach my vision.