Sociology: CIA-II

Submitted To: Dr. Uttam Kumar Panda

Submitted By: Kushal Agrawal

Enrollment ID: 22/2022/2644

Roll no: 87

Section: C

Sem: 1

Topic: Review of International Women's Health and Human

Rights Documentary

Introduction

In her documentary, Anne Firth Murray delves deeper into a woman’s life
from infancy to old age. She demonstrates various hurdles and problems a
woman faces in society. According to her, we often restrict ourselves to the
economic, health and educational indicators to measure the difficulties of a
woman. Still, we should see it from a lens of human rights and justice.

Anne asserts that educating girls, giving them access to proper healthcare, and
access to nutritional food is not just a sound economic policy, but it’s their
right to all of that, and it’s just.

Four “Critical Themes”: Anne Firth Murray

According to her, four major themes or issues are critical for a woman, as if it
is a matter of life and death. These are said to be necessary because, majorly, a
woman’s problems revolve around them. Those four principles are:

· First is being born female: Females are stigmatized in many world

societies. Many countries, if not all, don’t want a girl to be born into
their family, and they despise that for some time; some even go to the
extent of killing them. This stigmatization has led to an abysmal sex
ratio, further deteriorating women’s situation.
· The second issue is Poverty: Poverty is omnipresent in all societies
but is at an extreme level in developing countries and countries with
much instability. Poverty does not only affect a single woman but her
whole family in various ways, such as maternal and child health,
protection of her rights, poor healthcare and sanitation, discrimination,
increased cases of domestic violence, etc.
· The third issue is unequal access to various rights and services such
as education, work, food, patriarchy etc.: Things have improved with
time, and many movements are running for equality for women, but in
reality, this has not been very fruitful as we always hear cases of
discrimination based on gender in various domains, issues of women
not getting their due credit and compensation for the work they do.
People still hesitate to send their girl child to provide primary
education, worsening their condition.
· Fourth critical issue is gender-based violence at home, in society in
general and in times of war and refugee status: Women are
consistently targeted and harassed by men wherever they get a chance.
This happens due to a lack of strict laws punishing those who indulge
in such activities. We not only need strict rules and regulations to
regulate it but also to spread awareness about the repercussions of
doing the same. Laws like Protection of Women from Domestic
 Violence Act, 2005, The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace
(PREVENTION, PROHIBITION and REDRESSAL) Act, 2013, etc.
are inadequate to address these issues as the perpetrators of crime
quickly get acquitted of the charges.

Akila Radhakrishnan: The Lens Of Human Rights

In conversation with Anne, Akila Radhakrishnan, Legal Director at the Global

Justice Center, talks about the problems faced by a woman through the lens of
human rights. Empowering women and supporting their education and health
help the society’s economy, b, ut Anne’s approach sees it as a violation of
their rights and injustice. She says if these issues were their rights rather than
an economic problem, people would address these issues very seriously. Akila
also supports feminism as it is concerned with the empowerment of women
and supporting their education, and so on.

Akila talks about her two major projects, which focus on sexual violence and
conflict. Sexual violence does not happen in private; it affects society at large.
Akila raises her voice for women’s right to abortion, and if it is the
consequence of rape, it harms the victim even more. Both rape victims and
their children get ostracized from society, which perpetuates the cycle of
trouble. Due to this, children can get into prostitution as early as the age of 14
to support their life. Akila is working on conflict-laden countries such as
African countries, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Burma, Syria, etc. Cases of sexual
violence are very high in places where there’s war because it has been often
said that “rape is a tactic of war”. We need strict regulations to help the
victims of sexual violence in conflicts get proper treatment and access to
abortion, as sexual violence is not just a health issue but a right to health and
bodily integrity.

Akila says this funding problem has been caused by the US government, as it
does not provide funding for abortion services even in places of conflict and
where abortion has been made legal, such as Sudan.

The global justice centre is also working with countries at a nascent stage of
transitioning to democracy as it is the right moment to embed women’s rights
and define the discrimination against women. As seen in Rwanda, while
forming the constitution, they reserved 40% of seats for women, which now
has the highest number of women in parliament. According to her, there’s an
excellent opportunity to insert woman’s rights into the constitution while it is
or will form, for example, in Iraq, Burma and Sudan, as these countries are
developing their body.

Conclusion

This was a really enlightening video that helped us understand the

complexities and challenges that a woman goes through in order to fight for
her rights. Anne and Akila provide some light on topics that the general
populace often ignores and does not investigate as thoroughly, such as the
subject of sexual assault in countries that are now experiencing conflict. They
also made us think about things from a different point of view by pointing out
that empowering women is not just the moral thing to do or a good economic
policy; rather, it is a woman's right to receive food, an education, access to
proper healthcare, and equal treatment in all aspects of life. This new way of
thinking was very eye-opening for all of us.