Be Your Own Weapon
After the unfortunate ‘Nirbhaya ’ incident followed by spurt in ‘crime against
women’ the government was pushed to the corner for its inability to curb such
‘disasters’.
What followed amongst other measures was the directive by
the govt. that ‘every organization employing women would need to organize
adequate security arrangements for them’. The directives included some of the
following :
1.
Safe pick up & drop of the female
employees if their shifts or work involves staying beyond late hours - Soon after this became a norm we heard of
another infamous incident of ‘Dhaula Kuan Rape Case’ where the victim was
kidnapped while she was walking back to her home after the drop was raped &
dumped.
2.
Govt took another ‘knee jerk reaction’ &
made it compulsory for all organizations to ensure that a GPS was installed to
monitor the movement & a security guard provided to escort specially the
lady employees. Last pick & first drop became a norm too –On a personal
interaction with umpteen users it came to light that most of the times the
security personnel were nothing more than a mere ‘deterrence’ & that too
weak one as they had little or no knowledge or training of what to do when
things would go wrong. The GPS was a ‘reactionary measure, as it was not backed
up with 24x7 control room & quick response team in most cases. Eventually
the police had to be informed who have always had their own challenges in terms
of efficiency & response.
3.
At the corporate & industrial level ‘Sexual
Harassment as Workplace Act’ was also implemented. The effectiveness of which
remains debatable & subjective.
4.
Finally the buck was passed on to the ‘victim’
or ‘probable victim’ & ‘Self Defence Training’ was made compulsory for
all women employees atleast once in a year. A mention of the same was made in
the Shop & Establishments Act across States
- A lot of proactive & employee centric organizations came
forward & ensured such trainings from ‘professionals’ but there were some
for who it was a mere ‘tick in the compliance list’ which saw mushrooming of
‘self proclaimed’ self defence instructors some went up to call themselves
‘Self Defence Experts’ with no understanding of the subject, irrelevant
qualifications, lack of formal training & certifications.
Finally the onus of doing something about sexual harassment
like eve teasing, inappropriate touching, molestation, rape etc. lies with the probable victim. Now it is for
her say ‘no’ , ‘act’ & ‘survive’ – NAS ! It won’t be wrong to say
here that ‘between you & your perpetrator there is no one else but YOU.
Everyone else is going to come later’. So ‘be your own weapon’! Real freedom is
not merely unfurling the flag but unfurling our ‘I Dare..’ attitude! The
freedom to ‘walk without fear’.
Next time I shall talk about ‘what is self defence and how wrong or no training can put your
life & honor in peril’.
Capt. Jaipreet Joshi 12th Aug 2015
Founder FITCOMB &
JOE's Combative
'REAL COMBATIVE for REAL SITUATIONS'/
www.fitcomb.com
Comments
Post a Comment