CHENNAI: In a bid to chalk out patterns that leads to instances of sexual harassment in the wake of the #MeToo movement which has urged many survivors to come out with their experiences, a public consultation was held by an activist collective, Kaani Nilam or Ek Potlee Ret Ki at MGR Janaki College of Arts and Science for Women on Sunday.
A seven member panel comprising experienced activists, artists, lawyers and social welfare experts, shared their professional opinion on the next course of legal action that can be taken to get justice for the survivors. A series of 98 such instances had been collated by the collective, mostly from the internet, as case studies to establish a common pattern between the alleged perpetrators, said Radhika Ganesh, founder of Kaani Nilam.
“Our aim is not to judge any of the experiences of the survivors who have been reaching out to us. We wanted to put together an expert panel to find a common thread or a pattern that has led to so many such similar instances. One pattern that was very obvious was that harassment is gender neutral and is not age specific,” she said.
During the three-hour long discussion, 12 instances of harassment as told by the survivors to the collective were read out by volunteers. Harassment allegations involving well-known professors, personalities in the music and arts industry and in mainstream media were shared during the discourse. “48 percent of children who have been abused are boys.
While going through the case studies, I found many allegations of harassment coming from men. There are women who have been stalking and causing mental trauma to men. This proves against the stereotype that the Me Too movement is about women,” said Nirmala MP, Commissioner of Child Rights Commission, Tamil Nadu.
Social activist and Dalit scholar, Semmalar, one of the panellists, pointed out that the momentum of the MeToo movement must be used as a tool to bridge the gap between urban and rural. “It is pertinent that we use this movement to encourage women from the Dalit, Adivasi, Muslim and other minority communities to come forward with their stories of harassment,” she said.