By Dominick Rodrigues

Mumbai: Violence against women remains is a serious issue globally and India is one of the countries that top the list. FLO – the Women’s Wing of FICCI  – in association with Humara Bachpan Trust (HBT) (a Bhubaneswar-based NGO), recently reiterated its commitment towards promoting gender equality and prevention of gender-based violence against females through a 16-day intensive campaign aimed at raising awareness, influencing action and policy changes, supporting survivors through legal protection, ensuring their wellbeing through mental health interventions and ensuring rehabilitation through social security measures and generating public awareness and support.

 2020 witnessed FICCI FLO partnering with HBT in this activism campaign, aligned to this year’s global UN theme of “addressing violence against women informal workers,” where till date, 22185 people have signed and pledged to end violence against children and women. This campaign — inspired by and in support of the ‘16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence’, an international UN campaign to challenge violence against women and girls — runs every year from 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, to 10 December, Human Rights Day.

 The FLO organised various initiatives along with HBT under ‘FLO’s one million rising against gender-based violence’ through which the organization aims to reach out to 1 million people & sensitize them about gender-based violence.

 Jahnabi Phookan, President FLO, said, “We at FLO have taken up these initiatives with an objective of creating an appropriate platform for sharing training modules for Gender Sensitization and Cyber Awareness, for people to freely share their personal experiences related to gender-based violence, sensitize people about such problems & how to tackle them & in turn help in building a better world”.

 Highlighting training of over 400 teachers across India to address the issues of Gender sensitization, Cyberbullying and Internet Safety, FLO’s Kanpur Chapter Chair Dr Aarti Gupta launched “Teach Them Young campaign”.

FLO Bhubaneswar–  in association with Humara Bachpan Trust — carried out Gender audits across Bhubaneswar slums to identify unsafe areas & various forms of violence and measures to stop them. A series of open mic among women workers such as migrant construction workers, domestic workers, agriculture labour and other daily wage earners were organized in tribal pockets of Sambalpur and Sundargarh districts, Tilori, Ghirongi & Singhwari villages of Bhind, Madhya Preash and urban communities of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar where 2500+ women participated. Through the program, women workers came forward and shared their workplace related challenges and other associated social issues.

Awareness building programmes were conducted among women informal workers about different legal provisions related to remuneration, industrial relations, working conditions and social security mechanisms through door-to-door campaign, street plays, auto mic and community advocacy meetings that reached nearly 3000 women workers. More than 2000 adolescent girls have been sensitized as part of the 16 days activism in Sambalpur, Sundargarh, Satapada(Puri) and Bhubaneswar.

The campaign also facilitated 20 women — casual workers from Budheswari Labour colony, Pichu Basti, Rangani Sahi, Jagannath Basti Press colony & OAUT Farmgate basti of Bhubaneswar — with job cards, while 42 women street vendors from Pichu Basti, Rangani Sahi, Adeikhala and OAUT Farmgate basti were linked with Pradhan Mantri SVANidhi yojana to receive micro credit facility to revive their pandemic impacted business.

 The COVID-19 pandemic this year has brought new sets of vulnerabilities for women and girls; school closures and economic strains that have left women and girls poorer, out of school and out of jobs, and more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse by intimate partners, forced marriages and harassment. Globally, 243 million women and girls were abused by an intimate partner in the past year, but less than 40 per cent of women who experience violence report it or seek help.

FLO is the women’s wing of the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) and was established in 1983, as a division of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), which is the apex body of industry and commerce in India. FLO has been promoting entrepreneurship and professional excellence among women through workshops, seminars, conferences, training and capacity building programmers, etc. As an All India Organisation for women, FLO has 17 Chapters pan India – Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Kanpur, Ludhiana, Mumbai, Pune, Amritsar, North-east & Uttarakhand, with its Head Office in New Delhi. Its members comprise entrepreneurs, professionals, and Corporate Executives.