OUR BUREAU
Nov. 18: Sherlin Yanthan can still feel the knotty middle-aged fingers creeping up her thighs. But what the young girl from Nagaland remembers clearer still are the cold stares of her co-passengers on that crowded Delhi bus.
“I did not scream. I simply grabbed one of the fingers on the groping hand and snapped it, trying to break the bone,” recalls Sherlin (name changed). “And when I threatened to gouge his eyes out, the space around me cleared. It was a clear message that there was one insane, uncivilised and wild northeastern girl among well-mannered ladies and gentlemen. But I had faced such situations before — people don’t judge the culprit but make it a point to recognise us northeasterners as outcastes,” she said.
Sherlin’s case is just another statistic that corroborates a study by the Delhi-based Northeast Support Centre & Helpline: close to 59 per cent of sexual assaults in the capital are perpetrated against girls from the Northeast.
The newly formed NGO works to help victims of sexual harassment and racial discrimination and caters to people from the Northeast living in Delhi and the National Capital Region.
Social activist Madhu Chandra from Manipur, who is the spokesman for the organisation, said the figures could be higher as many cases go unreported. “We cannot trust police as they often refuse to register cases involving people from the Northeast,” he said. Chandra said the organisation often has to rely on newspaper and television reports to collect data.
Over 85,000 people from the region work or study in the national capital. While most are from Assam, Manipur and Nagaland come a close second and third.
“We needed a platform to fight to give a better deal to the people of the Northeast,” Chandra said. The “platform” is a joint initiative of various human rights activists, students, journalists and lawyers seeking to prevent harassment of people from the region and from tribal communities of other states.
The support centre exerts pressure on the authorities to take action against the guilty, Chandra said. “The culprit becomes more courageous when the police let them go scot free. The public looks on as a mere spectator and if we defend ourselves, people judge us as outcastes,” he said.
Chandra said the forum was in touch with public leaders, bureaucrats and political leaders of the region to add teeth to the campaign against discrimination. He also stressed the need to place the issue of discrimination meted out to people from the Northeast before the Centre in a more forceful manner. “And that’s what we are trying to achieve,” he said.
The Sherlins in Delhi are listening.
Source: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1071119/asp/northeast/story_8561458.asp
Nov. 18: Sherlin Yanthan can still feel the knotty middle-aged fingers creeping up her thighs. But what the young girl from Nagaland remembers clearer still are the cold stares of her co-passengers on that crowded Delhi bus.
“I did not scream. I simply grabbed one of the fingers on the groping hand and snapped it, trying to break the bone,” recalls Sherlin (name changed). “And when I threatened to gouge his eyes out, the space around me cleared. It was a clear message that there was one insane, uncivilised and wild northeastern girl among well-mannered ladies and gentlemen. But I had faced such situations before — people don’t judge the culprit but make it a point to recognise us northeasterners as outcastes,” she said.
Sherlin’s case is just another statistic that corroborates a study by the Delhi-based Northeast Support Centre & Helpline: close to 59 per cent of sexual assaults in the capital are perpetrated against girls from the Northeast.
The newly formed NGO works to help victims of sexual harassment and racial discrimination and caters to people from the Northeast living in Delhi and the National Capital Region.
Social activist Madhu Chandra from Manipur, who is the spokesman for the organisation, said the figures could be higher as many cases go unreported. “We cannot trust police as they often refuse to register cases involving people from the Northeast,” he said. Chandra said the organisation often has to rely on newspaper and television reports to collect data.
Over 85,000 people from the region work or study in the national capital. While most are from Assam, Manipur and Nagaland come a close second and third.
“We needed a platform to fight to give a better deal to the people of the Northeast,” Chandra said. The “platform” is a joint initiative of various human rights activists, students, journalists and lawyers seeking to prevent harassment of people from the region and from tribal communities of other states.
The support centre exerts pressure on the authorities to take action against the guilty, Chandra said. “The culprit becomes more courageous when the police let them go scot free. The public looks on as a mere spectator and if we defend ourselves, people judge us as outcastes,” he said.
Chandra said the forum was in touch with public leaders, bureaucrats and political leaders of the region to add teeth to the campaign against discrimination. He also stressed the need to place the issue of discrimination meted out to people from the Northeast before the Centre in a more forceful manner. “And that’s what we are trying to achieve,” he said.
The Sherlins in Delhi are listening.
Source: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1071119/asp/northeast/story_8561458.asp
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