The Women in Black, India in a quiet, sustained way has sought to make public the many forms of ‘personal’ violence against women – wife battering, dowry deaths, female foeticide female circumcision, pornography, sexual assault, rape. Everywhere, women, are unmasking the many horrific faces of more public ‘legitimate’ violences – state repression, communalism, ethnic cleansing, nationalism, nuclearisation, wars ….. violence in the name of development, in the name of reproductive technologies, genetic engineering, and the feminisation of poverty.
The issues have been many. The forms in which protests have been expressed have also been varied. Silence, posters, placards, pamphlets and some times lighting lamps, have been an expression of this collective rebellion and resistance.
While the above mentioned issues are some of the vigils that the WIB India have focused on, we have also stood in solidarity for peoples living in war and conflict zones – with people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine to mention a few.
On March 8, 2002, International Women’s Day we stood on the streets of Bangalore where over 1,000 men and women from all walks of life joined our voices in solidarity against the forces of Hindutva.
In 2002 the Women in Black in Bangalore stood in silence every week for almost three months protesting the declaration of America’s War of terror on Afghanistan.
On February 15, 2003 a day on which human rights organisations across the globe came together in their towns and cities to protest the war on Iraq the Asian Women’s Human Rights Council India and Vimochana organised a Women in Black vigil.
