Ladies theatre staff in West Bengal have created a discussion board in opposition to sexual harassment in theatre areas.
| Picture Credit score: Instagram/@surokkha.istehar
Ladies theatre staff in West Bengal have created a discussion board in opposition to sexual harassment in theatre areas, calling it Surokkha Istehar (‘Security Pamphlet’), which intends to supply authorized and psychological well being assist to sexual abuse survivors in theatre areas, and improve consciousness about abuse.
On Tuesday night, the newly shaped group submitted a memorandum to the Paschim Banga Natya Akademi, a wing of the Division of Data and Cultural Affairs, demanding measures in opposition to sexual harassment.
“It’s a research-based truth that almost all survivors of sexual crimes don’t lodge police complaints or take authorized motion. Within the few instances that they do, the complainants have to beat obstacles and social stigma for taking an offender to courtroom, which is one other large battle that they should combat. So as soon as somebody comes ahead and takes this enormous leap, the authorized side of the entire case turns into crucial as a result of everybody, together with survivors who’ve been silent, hopes that justice can be served,” the memorandum mentioned.
“However in latest instances, now we have seen that on a number of events, theatre administrators and actors who’re present process trials for such crimes have returned to stage and carried out in public. We really feel that this strongly compromises the safety of the complainants and invokes an unsafe feeling inside younger and susceptible folks in theatre,” it mentioned.
Such reinstatement of offenders, in accordance with Titas Samuho of Surokkha Istehar, despatched only one message to the survivors and the folks of marginalised gender and identities — that their security doesn’t matter. “As a theatre employee, gender justice activist and a survivor, I’m not okay with it. Many survivors had the identical sense of injustice, and the don’t-care behaviour of senior ‘males’ and ‘ladies’ of theatre on this matter appeared straight-way hooliganism to us,” Ms. Samuho, an alumnus of the Nationwide College of Drama and the London Worldwide College of Performing Arts, advised The Hindu.
The memorandum, additionally signed by numerous professors and college students aside from theatre folks, demanded speedy formation of an Inside Committee if it was not in existence already. The group additionally wished to be told concerning the plans and programmes of the Akademi it meant to take as much as stop sexual offences and guarantee security of ladies, marginalised folks, minors and youngsters in theatre areas throughout districts.
“The formation of Surokkha Istehar by theatre staff, queer-feminist activists and folks within the subject of schooling and leisure, addresses a much less talked about, however extraordinarily essential, situation of sexual harassment in theatre. Members of Surokkha Istehar have been writing and speaking about entrenched practices of harassment in Bengali theatre, even in probably the most progressive teams. This discussion board and the memorandum that they’ve submitted highlights these horrific situations, and calls out the tradition of impunity that group theatre, like the remainder of society, works with,” Samata Biswas, Professor of English at Kolkata’s Sanskrit School and College, mentioned.
