GENDER: EQUALITY
Research lights
gender equality’s
tortuous path
The perspectives of a new
generation are emerging as
sources of hope in cultures
where freeing women from
systemic abuse faces the
strongest resistance.
There is a wave of female empowerment
sweeping South Asia – in Afghanistan,
Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Republic of
Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
On the surface, this comes as good news for women
and girls whose horizons are being broadened by access
to study and workplaces.
This gain is seen as especially positive given this
region historically has the highest rates of child
marriage side by side with dowry and domestic
violence, honour killings, trafficking and abnormal levels
of female child mortality. But there remains a grim
reality beneath the surface, and it took the specialist
skills of social anthropologist Tamsin Bradley, Professor
in International Development Studies, to help detect it.
“In our research we found that violence has
followed South Asian women from their traditional
domestic settings to their newfound work and study
environments,” she says.
This finding, and insight, is now being used to help
develop new schemes to support women as they
make the often-fraught progression from oppressed to
liberated citizens.
ISSUE 1 / 2020
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