Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) stands firmly and unconditionally with survivors from various movement spaces, who have come forward with their testimonies of sexual assault, harassment and other forms of interpersonal violence on social media from Trolley Times, Swaraj Abhiyan and SFS. We are thankful to these survivors for finding the courage to share their traumatic experiences. Those[Read More…]
Demand the immediate release of Nodeep Kaur and Shiv Kumar and cessation of targeting of workers and peasants by the Haryana Police! WSS strongly condemns the arrest and custodial sexual violence perpetrated by the Haryana Police in Kundli Industrial Area against 24-year-old dalit worker Nodeep Kaur On January 12th 2021, the Haryana Police began firing at a workers’ rally[Read More…]
We, as a group working towards achieving a safer and more just society for women, are writing this open letter to you in great dismay at some recent developments in Andhra Pradesh state. As you are aware, the alleged gang-rape case of 11 adivasi women of the Kondh tribe by 13 men of AP Special Police personnel during a raid[Read More…]
WSS is appalled at the arrest of Father Stan Swamy, an elderly Jesuit priest working on adivasi issues for the past 5 decades in the infamous Bhima Koregaon – Elgar Parishad conspiracy case on the night of 8 October, 2020. WSS condemns this most recent arrest of a sterling activist and a reputed authority, and calls out the sheer absurdity[Read More…]
Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) deeply mourns the passing away of Ilina Sen on August 9 in Kolkata. Ilina, 69, was a feminist activist, teacher, researcher and writer passionately involved with the women’s movement in India. Be it through activist work or classroom pedagogy, conferences or rallies, Ilina’s deep engagement with women’s struggles in Madhya Pradesh and[Read More…]
A five member team from Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) conducted a fact finding visit in four districts of Western Uttar Pradesh – Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Shamli and Bijnor, on 1st and 2nd of February 2020 to document the situation 40 days after the incidents of alleged police brutalities, which occurred on December 18th, 19th and 20th 2019[Read More…]
On November 9th 2019, 19 year old Fathima Latheef, a first year topper student of IIT-Madras, committed suicide citing harassment by Prof. Sudarshan Padmanabhan in a note left behind on her cell phone. This is the fifth suicide on the campus of the elite institution this year with Fathima being victim to not just institutional casteism but anti-muslim harassment from[Read More…]
WSS deeply condemns the majority judgment of the Supreme Court which has dismissed the PIL filed by Romila Thapar, Devaki Jain, Satish Deshpande, Prabhat Patnaik and Maja Daruwalla and has in effect granted the notorious Pune Police impunity to carry on with its fabricated and malafide investigation in the Bhima Koregaon (FIR No. 4/2018) case. The Court in its vague[Read More…]
The morning of August 6th 2018, preliminary news reports indicated that 15 ‘Naxals’ had been gunned down by the Chhattisgarh police in Sukma district. This encounter, the reports claimed, also included injuries to two others, a man and a woman, who were then arrested. This encounter happened near Nalkatong village in the Mika Tong forests near Gollapalli and Konta Block[Read More…]
PRELIMINARY REPORT OF FACT-FINDING TEAM OF WOMEN’S GROUPS INTO THE INCIDENT OF GANG RAPE IN KHUNTI AND CONTINUING REPRESSION IN GHAGHRA AND NEIGHBOURING VILLAGES IN KHUNTI AND ARAKI DISTRICTS OF JHARKHAND Following up on media reports of the gang rape of 5 adivasi women in Kochang, Araki block, Khunti district while holding street plays on anti-trafficking, WSS constituted a fact-finding[Read More…]
Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) is outraged at the arbitrary arrest of its valued member, Professor Shoma Sen along with other leading Dalit and human rights activists, in an alarming crackdown on civil liberties activists throughout the country. Today, on 6th June 2018 at 6 am in the morning, Professor Shoma Sen, Advocate Surendra Gadling, cultural activist[Read More…]
We strongly condemn the recent incidents of rape and sexual violence in the country: the rape of an 8-year old girl in Kathua, Jammu, of a 15-year old in Unnao, UP, of a tea-shop owner as well as 15 year old girl in Meghalaya, of an 11-year old girl in Surat, Gujarat, a 15-year old in Faridabad whose corpse was[Read More…]
Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) stands firmly with all those who have come forward to report their experiences of sexual harassment and assault in university spaces and colleges across the country by male faculty members. The feminist movement has acknowledged that there is no one way to seek justice and each complainant must have the autonomy to[Read More…]
As part of a fact-finding delegation of women representing various civil society organizations and women’s organizations, WSS held a press conference at 12.30 pm at Karimnagar press club on 2 January, 2017 and visited Satavahana University (SU). Context: On 25 December 2017, dalit bahujan students of Satavahana University in Karimnagar, Telangana, held an event outside the campus gate infront of[Read More…]
The suicide of the minor dalit girl in Kunduli of Koraput district in Odisha on 22 January is a moment of reckoning for everyone fighting against the heinous crime of violence against women. She had accused four security personnel of gangrape on October 10, 2017. Very typical of incidence of sexual violence where the accused happen to be police, army[Read More…]
Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) stands firmly with the survivors who have faced sexual harassment at the hands of the perpetrators on and off the list and, most importantly, extends solidarity in this moment of unravelling narratives, disjointed arguments and personal struggles of individuals voicing their experiences. The last few weeks have seen lists of sexual harassers[Read More…]
Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) strongly condemns the manner in which our member Ms Bondita Acharya, a well known women’s activist from Jorhat, Assam, is being criminally intimidated, abused in sexual language, defamed and trolled on her Facebook account only because she expressed her personal opinion regarding eating of beef, a common practice in her state of[Read More…]
WSS stands with the struggling people of Bhangar against the severe repression unleashed by the state in order to establish a power grid and high power transmission lines across the area by force. In the course of this struggle: Two people have died as a result of bullet wounds inflicted by the police and armed goons while several more people have[Read More…]
WSS welcomes the actions taken by the Government of Chhattisgarh to restore its credibility and regain the confidence of the citizens of Bastar. In a series of decisive administrative actions yesterday, the state government announced the appointment of Sri P Sundararaj, IPS as DIG of the newly-created Dantewada Range. Bastar IG Sri SRP Kalluri has been asked to proceed on[Read More…]
Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression condemns the recent attack against Bela Bhatia, a researcher and activist, based in Bastar, Chhattisgarh. On the 23rd of January, 2017, a group of 30-odd men attacked Bela near her house. They barged into her house violently, and threatened to burn the building down if she did not leave immediately. The mob also[Read More…]
WSS welcomes the decisive intervention of the National Human Rights Commission in cases of sexual violence against Adivasi women by police and security forces engaged in anti-Maoist operations in Chhattisgarh. Validating our assertion that sexual violence is being used as a weapon of war in Bastar, the Commission has held the State government “vicariously liable” for gross violations of human[Read More…]
Clearly rattled by the mounting body of evidence of blatant violations of the rule of law and Constitutional rights under the cover of anti-Maoist operations, the Bastar police has launched a no-holds-barred attempt to silence all those who are calling them to account. Advocate Shalini Gera and her colleagues of JagLAG who were in Jagdalpur in connection with a case[Read More…]
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Our beloved K.P.Sasi is no more. Filmmaker, cartoonist, writer, mentor, friend and above all tireless activist championing the cause of every underdog, Sasi breathed his last, mid-afternoon this Christmas day – after battling a medical condition for months. I remember the last time I met him, almost exactly a month before he passed away, at the ayurvedic healing center in[Read More…]
