Srinagar, Dec 9: Kashmir University’s Centre for Women’s Studies and Research (CWSR) on Wednesday organised a webinar on domestic violence.
Registrar Dr Nisar Ahmad Mir inaugurated the day-long webinar “Domestic Violence: Chronicling the Ordeal and the Way Out”, organised in collaboration with the University Grants Commission (UGC).
In his presidential remarks, Dr Mir referred to recent news reports which suggested that within just four months of Covid-19 pandemic, women in the country filed more domestic violence complaints than recorded in the same span of time in the last 10 years.
“One such report said that about 86% women who experienced violence never sought help while 77% of the victims did not even mention the incidents to anyone,” he said, adding that the report also highlighted that of 14.3% of victims who sought help, only 7% reached out to relevant authorities or social service organisations, even as over 90% victims sought help only from their immediate family.
Dr Mir said it is important to change attitudes of people through mass awareness to put an end to domestic violence.
“Alongside, we need to put in place a robust couselling system and a serious community-level engagement-cum-communication strategy to address the concerns related to domestic violence,” he said.
Keynote speaker Ms Rashmi Anand, a noted author and social activist, talked at length about the dynamics of domestic violence and its larger impact on the victims as well as the society at large.
Sharing what she called her “personal ordeal” with domestic violence, Ms Anand referred to ways of addressing domestic violence with a positive bent of mind within homes and in the vicinity.
“It is important to understand where the roots of domestic violence exactly lie in our social and economic structures and devise effective ways and means to uproot the same from such structures,” she said.
Coordinator CWSR Prof Tabasum Firdous underscored the importance of highlighting the issues relating to domestic violence and its perils in our day-to-day lives. She also highlighted the CWSR’s regular interventions in trying to offer plausible solutions to address such problems by means of generating awareness and holding counseling programmes.
The webinar was, among others, attended by several students and scholars, who also joined an ensuing question-answer session with the expert speaker.
