Breaking through the gender barriers: Mallika Dutt

Gender based violence is one of the biggest evils of the Indian society and many women, men and organizations are working towards eliminating it. Mallika Dutt is one of them. Quitting her job Ford Foundation as a human rights program director, she started a global women’s rights organisation that to make violence against women and girls unacceptable.

Currently the founder, president and CEO of Breakthrough, a human rights organization, and a co-founder Sakhi for South Asian Women, a women’s rights organization; Dutt was also behind the Shubha Mudgal  ">song about women’s rights. The song won the 2001 National Screen Award in India for best music video.

In an interview with DNA, talking about focusing on gender issues, she said, “Gender intersects with all issues; it is not a category by itself. It is affected by everything and affects everything. Violence against women is also the largest pandemic in the world. I believe that the first place that human being create an ‘Us vs Them’ attitude is with women. The first objectification happens with women. Kids grow up watching the inequality in homes. There is a direct link between how we treat women and how we treat other marginalised communities. This creates a pathway for many other issues to be addressed.”

Mallika Dutt
Picture By: Wn.com

Dutta reveals that through a programme started by her team, called, ‘Aap kis tarha key aadmi hain?’ they talked to men about using condoms as they found out most of them refused to wear them. The ‘Bell Bajao’ campaign was also her brain child. In the interview she revealed that the campaign reached over 130 million people in India through television, radio and video-vans.

Having worked towards such issues for over a decade, she added, “Our work has now expanded to address issues such as early marriage, gender bias and sex selection in Haryana, sexual harassment, sexual violence. We understand that when you tell people to be a part of the solution, as opposed to saying that you are the problem, there is a shift in engagement in their mind.”

ORIGINAL SOURCE: DNA

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