Jamaat-e-Islami Hind launches nationwide campaign against sexual violence

Srinagar, August 27: With cases of sexual abuse of women on the rise in India, the country’s largest Muslim organisation announced on Tuesday that its women’s wing will launch a month-long nationwide campaign titled ‘Morality is Freedom’ in September this year.

The aim of the campaign is to make people aware of “true freedom and how it is linked to morality,” said Ms Rahamathunnissa, national secretary of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind.

Expressing regret over the increasing incidents of sexual violence and murder of women and girls in the country, she said, “Social inequality, neglect of safety and discrimination against women in our society have further complicated this problem. The cases of sexual violence against marginalised women, including Dalits, Adivasis, minorities and disabled women, are even more serious,” she said.

She said, “The recent incidents like the rape and murder of a woman doctor at RG Kar Hospital in Kolkata (West Bengal), the gang rape and murder of a 14-year-old Dalit girl in Gopalpur (Bihar), the rape and brutal murder of a Muslim nurse in Udham Singh Nagar (Uttarakhand) and the sexual assault of two preschool girls at a school in Badlapur (Maharashtra) prove that there is a serious need to rethink the mindset and behaviour towards women and girls in the country.”

Addressing a press conference at the headquarters in New Delhi, Rahamathunnissa said statistics from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) and the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) show that crimes against women are increasing every year.

These reports, she said, “contain only the cases reported by the media, who knows how many cases go unreported. How much struggle do women have to go through to get justice? The Bilkis Bano case, in which she was raped in the 2002 Gujarat massacre, is a clear example. She has fought a long and hard battle to get justice,” she said.

She further said that “the mentality of violence against women has spread like an epidemic, affecting the peace and progress of the nation. The root cause of this curse is the decline of moral values ​​under the guise of unlimited freedom. The lack of moral values ​​in the society, viewing women as objects, sexual exploitation and abuse, vulgarity, extramarital affairs and increasing use of alcohol and drugs all contribute to harassment and exploitation,” she alleged.

Moreover, she said, the rise in sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), abortions, sexual violence and rape, as well as the breakdown of the family and the normalization of indecency, are rapidly destroying the moral fabric of society.

Moreover, she said, the growing influence of communal and caste-based politics, the viewing of certain communities and castes as inferior, and the desire to maintain dominance over them, has exacerbated the situation. Criminals and accused individuals are often portrayed as heroes for political and material gains, when in fact they should be convicted.

During the campaign, awareness programs are organized at the national, state, district and regional levels in collaboration with educators, counselors, lawyers, religious scholars and community leaders, the organization’s brochure says.

Special programmes would be conducted on the campuses to introduce students and youth to true freedom and moral values.

In order to bring common moral values ​​into the public debate, special programs are organized in which scientists from different religions participate. Read the brochure.