Aasma Parveen, a girl of 16 years of age, residing in a small village Patni of Dist. Saharanpur (UP), is yet another story of Indian girl dropped out from school. Aasma stood second in class-V, scoring 80.5% when she was dropped out in 2005-06. This time story was different, she was forced out from school not because of normal reasons like financial crisis or disliking of parents for a girl child, but because of the eve teasers. These things used to happen in cities few years back and now we can see eve teasers in every nook and corner of even rural areas.
Aasma was always determined to go back to school. Seeing her love for study I forced her parents to allow her re-enter in class room. She was admitted again in school in class-VI on 25-Sep'09.
Aasma is trying hard to catch up, though its very late and all her friends are in class-IX.
Wishing the best for Aasma.
One needs to delve deeper into our social structure to understand the real cause of a malice such as eve teasing. Centuries of patriarchal subjugation, skewed power-gender relations, and an ever dropping sex ratio have all contributed to a vicious circle that is increasing the oppression of women in the face of a cataclysmic economic growth. At the cost of sounding cynical, I have to admit that the future seems bleak. Here's hoping that Aasma succeeds in inspiring other girls with her determination, intelligence and hard work. This could be the beginning that so many of us have been looking for! Great work Sajid!
ReplyDeleteEve teasing has always been a threat to girls in rural as well as urban and sub-urban areas.
ReplyDeleteThe issue needs to be highlighted and this is the crucial stage to come together to curb the social evil.Societal concern and progresiveness in this direction are the need of the hour.
Accolades to Mr.Sajid Ali for this noble initiative.I appreciate the effort and will make sincere attempts on my part to continue this noble cause
Such poignant stories are manifesting some of the dreadful aspects of the rural society which are majorly a news of the urban sphere and simultaneously inspiring that things can change if a little effort is put... Kudos to Sajid for doing a wonderful job. If u can change the life of one person, ur job is done as a human..
ReplyDeleteIt would be inspiring if Sajid tells us more about it.. such as how he came to know the girl and how he managed to convince her parents..etc.
Nitesh, the whole story goes like this. I was in the same village for a family function. In the neighborhood house, I saw a girl working every bit of household work with precision. Seeing her working even in school hours, I inquired. To my surprise i was told that she was dropped out from school in 2005. During discussion with her parents and brother, the ugly story unfolded. on being asked if they would Aasma to start with education again, they were hesitant. Major resistance came from her elder brother whom they call Rashid. I asked Rashid," If you are so concerned of safety why don't you drop her to school in morning and pick her in the evening." He was speechless. He never thought that this can be a solution. I feel problems are not that big, We make them big. We opt for easier path. Same happened with this family.
ReplyDeleteAs Ajita said, the social structure as a whole is not resilient to accommodate and always forces girls to compromise . My cousin was getting admission in SGSITS Indore (ranked equivalent to NIT-Bhopal) but her maternal uncle didn't allow (one apprehension they expressed was what Sajid shared and there were many more) and therefore she was forced to take admission in BSc in her own town. My father persuaded them and said that she will stay with us and atleast let her join rewa engg college and finally they agreed to grant this permission. She deserved much higher pedestal and rewa engg college was certainly not a good choice but then that was a compromise ... :( I felt very sad that on one hand i was moving to an altogether different state for a good engg.college and there was no objection and she being girl was being withheld.
ReplyDeleteIt was great on her part that she inspite of all odds, studied well and is now in SAIL.
Process would be gradual but as adage goes.. someone cannot solve every problem but everyone can solve some problem and Sajid's step is really commendable in this regard.