UN’s HeForShe campaign launched in India

The HeForShe campaign that was launched by the United Nations last month has now been launched in India as well. At the IIT Delhi festival themed ‘SHE’, a social awareness campaign, a press release by the UN confirmed this.

This campaigned was initially launched by actress and UN goodwill ambassador Emma Watson, who in her speech emphasized the need for both men and women to stand up for the cause of women.

Minister for Women and Child Development, Mrs Maneka Sanjay Gandhi said: “When a father respects the mother and other women in the house, the children learn to respect women as a part of their upbringing. The Ministry of Women and Child Development has started many initiatives over the last four months to empower women including: the one stop crisis centers for women, the national mission on malnutrition, and the beti bachayo beti padhayo campaign.”

Guru Mavin>

To this, UN Women Representative, Dr Rebecca Tavares added, “We need boys and men to work with us. HeForShe is a global solidarity movement to end gender inequality by 2030. The goal is to engage men and boys as advocates and agents of change in the effort to achieve equality. When women are empowered, the whole of humanity benefits.”

Dr.Abhijit Das, Director, Centre for Health & Social Justice, told Sikh Siyasat News, “masculinity is a burden on men and boys. We need to break this mind-set and this is the aim of the MenEngage.”Since the campaign was officially launched on the 20th of September 2014 at the UN General Assembly, 100,000 men have pledge support for the cause with 4000 of them being from India.

ORIGINAL SOURCE: Sikh Siyasat News

http://sikhsiyasat.net/2014/10/19/unwomen-launches-heforshe-campaign-in-india/