From 5th to 8th March 2018, our team was at Chhattisgarh State Office for gender sensitization trainings. The trainings began by discussing the distinction between sex and gender followed by a comprehensive look into entrenched gender-based stereotypes held/experienced by our participants due to the ill-effects of the gender-power relations.
For the first two days of the training, we held trainings with primary school teachers. On the third day, journalists and lawyers were the key participants, and finally, on the fourth day, district administration officers and personnel from the administration office comprised of the participant mix.
The training agenda was administered in a flexible format, with the aim of equitably reaching out to all participants. Gender mainstreaming at workplace, and the need to institutionalize it, was one of the salient features of this training. It also entailed a heavy component about sexual harassment, and the different forms in which it can exist- from sexual harassment at workplace to indecent representation of women online.
Types of gender-based crimes were delved into, and as part of this, we imparted training related to eve-teasing, stalking, molestation and voyeurism. Subsequently, the legal reform approach to these ‘crimes against women’ were discussed where in laws such as Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, Domestic Violence Act, Dowry Prohibition Act, Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, Juvenile Justice Act, Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act and Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, were discussed.
A pivotal highlight was the case studies discussed by our team, and how the participants manifested learnings from this training into the case study questionnaire. In the end, a summarization round was conducted of this four day long trainings, which enabled us to gauge the participants’ understanding about gender and how they intended to put this new knowledge into use.
