In light of the recent incident in Kolkata with regards to Women’s Safety, Sheena Chohan, a freedom Fighter, who was awarded the Human Rights Hero Award at the United Nations, has called for mandatory human rights education in all schools in India, to educate boys to give women respect.
Sheena, who was the first Indian that the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights, Volker Türk, reached out to help promote human rights in India, said:
“The main issues that makes life difficult for women in India is safety and the way we solve that is through educating boys to give women respect.
Discrimination is a big problem that women face – many boys are taught that the only use for a woman is house-work and making babies, so they do not respect women and then tragedies occur. Boys only commit crimes like this because they do not believe women deserve respect.
The Indian Constitution is one of the greatest in the world and its central point is equality – when boys are educated that girls and women are equal to men, they know that they must respect them. But this education has to start young, it has to be thorough and it has to be everywhere. It starts with Awareness of basic rights and equality.
Human Rights education is the solution to teach boys respect, but it must be given in line with The New National Education Policy (NEP). If we teach boys to memorize the Constitution, without understanding it, we achieve nothing – we have to ensure they understand all the words and can demonstrate the principles in every line! Boys must understand why girls deserve respect, what they must do to show girls respect and what the consequences are if they don’t give girls and women respect, and the tool to achieve that is mandatory human rights education.”
Sheena Chohan was awarded the Hero Award at the United Nations for spreading awareness of basic rights and equality to over 175 million people in South Asia. Sheena reached so many people by creating a podcast called Born Free & Equal where she put on events, including one called SAFETY, EQUALITY & RESPECT with Preety Zinta, Guneet Monga and Rohini Iyer. At that event in Mumbai, Sheeena and her guests brought up how awareness of and education in the Indian Constitution is the answer to these major issues facing women today.
Other activities Sheena works on include her podcast with Sonakshi Sinha, which dealt with the point that education holds the solution for all of India’s problems, including human rights issues. Sheena also discussed discrimination with Nandita Das and Alankrita Shrivastava, Freedom of Speech with R Balki and No Torture with Ashwini Iyer Tiwari. Sheena says:
“All of the basic rights in the Indian Constitution and United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights educate us in, bring about a decent society. If we want equality, peace and safety we must ensure human rights are understood by everyone. Boys receive their education in many ways – from their fathers or uncles, from the television and social media – and all of these have the potential to create a negative mind-set towards women. We must ensure that the senior education that boys, and girls, receive, is from the founders of our nation – from the Constitution itself.
The preamble of the Constitution says we must “promote among them all fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation”. The word “fraternity” means a feeling of brotherhood, friendship, community, and collaboration among all Indians, including men and women! So to build unity in our country we have to follow the words written for us at the birth of our nation – let’s make sure every boy knows the basic rights and responsibilities of all citizens of our nation, so he gives women respect and that means they have safety.’
Sheena used her speech at the United Nations to call for Mandatory Human Rights Education in all schools in India. As part of her work to achieve that, in her position as South Asia’s ambassador for United for Human Rights, Sheena encourages all teachers to request a free human rights education kit from humanrights.com or to give their students a free human rights course at www.humanrights.com/course
