BENGALURU: As part of Bangalore Central University lecture series on Nobel Laureates held from Friday to Sunday, Dr Sreeparna Chattopadhyay, a researcher in Public Health Foundation of India, who studies gender-based violence, spoke on the work of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winners Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad — who have extensively helped survivors of sexual violence in conflict areas.
“World Health Organisation recognises sexual violence as a major public health problem. Women, who are survivors of sexual violence in conflict areas, suffer damage to their genitalia and lead a poor quality of life,” she said.
Currently, she is working on a study on marital sexual violence. “India is one of the few democratic countries where there is an absence of marital rape laws. Consent is presumed to be permanent. Laws alone will not curb this violence but laws are needed to say marital rape is not permissible. Men need to acknowledge that a huge amount of privilege comes with being a man and should be willing to give up that privilege for change.”
Education and socialisation are also needed to reform mindsets, she said. The lecture was attended by professors and students of the college and school students as young as 14 and 15.
Rehana Sultana, a Biology teacher in Delhi Public School Bengaluru North, who accompanied five of her students from Classes 9 and 10, said, “Textbook knowledge is not enough. I’m not sure how much of the technicalities of bodily injuries the students understood, but with internet and social media, we never know what they have been exposed to.”