A digital magazine on sexuality, based in the Global South: We are working towards cultivating safe, inclusive, and self-affirming spaces in which all individuals can express themselves without fear, judgement or shame
Medical abortion is a threat to scientific authorities because it is technology easily used without the help of a medical provider. Since there is doubt that women will use the drug safely without supervision (even though they did it before and are still doing it), some think the kinder option is to remove their opportunity to fail.
Anja speaks with Shikha Aleya about the spread of digital surveillance into almost every aspect of our lives, its implications and what we need to do about it.
As a young woman, I feel powerless to do much more than get disturbed by this issue, write about it and talk about it with as many people as I can, with the hope that more of us will get disturbed by it and become more accepting of diverse expressions of gender and sexuality.
Though, in common rhetoric, it is often seen as the right to seek an abortion, it goes much beyond that to encompass a larger ambit of rights, and is applicable beyond simply a heteronormative framework of ‘reproduction’.
Though I come from a very conservative family, being open about female masturbation and watching porn didn’t seem to bother me. Yes, people have oohed and aahed at me for being so. I am still the same, proudly.
Were there more people like my father? Was it legal? I read about sexual diversity and how people of all sexual orientations should have the same rights[1], the LGBT community, and so on, and what the law says about them. Though the picture is not a completely happy one, a lot of work is going on in this area and there is still hope for the future.
In some of the country’s most conflicted regions, activism on issues of sexuality (if it’s aligned to human rights) is both a risky affair and one of secondary importance in the midst of larger socio-political and historical issues. The topic of human rights tends to center on gun violence, AFSPA, statehood and insurgency.
Sexual rights include the right to express one’s sexuality freely, without discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, and to have access to provisions in the legal framework that are all-inclusive and offer protection whenever the need arises.
As development professionals, our tasks involve reflecting on the norms that service providers, colleagues and field staff engaging with communities hold on to so strongly. How can programmes create safe spaces to match up to service providers’ professional and personal beliefs so that they can challenge those norms in their own families and be non-judgmental?
Every year we participate in an international campaign known as “The 16 Days Campaign” which runs from 25 November (International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women) to 10 December (Human Rights Day). It is an organising strategy by individuals and organisations around the world to call for the prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls.
Parents and significant adults in the lives of the Neelams of the world have been programmed to see age-appropriate sexual behaviour through the very narrow lens of “problems and disorders”. Their engagement of professionals like myself is mostly restricted to seeking to curb in the Neelams what is natural and joyous.