Entre sus otras actividades se encuentran: detener matrimonios infantiles, luchar por la
educación femenina, enseñar defensa personal a mujeres, escrachar violadores
públicamente y crear registros de los mismos.
The Gulabi
Gang is an extraordinary women’s movement formed in 2006 by Sampat Pal Devi
in the Banda District of Uttar Pradesh in Northern India. This region is one
of the poorest districts in the country and is marked by a deeply patriarchal
culture, rigid caste divisions, female illiteracy, domestic violence, child
labour, child marraiges and dowry demands. The women’s group is popularly
known as Gulabi or ‘Pink’ Gang because the members wear bright pink saris and
wield bamboo sticks. Sampat says, “We are not a gang in the usual sense of
the term, we are a gang for justice.”
The Gulabi
Gang was initially intended to punish oppressive husbands, fathers and
brothers, and combat domestic violence and desertion. The members of the gang
would accost male offenders and prevail upon them to see reason. The more
serious offenders were publicly shamed when they refused to listen or relent.
Sometimes the women resorted to their lathis, if the men resorted to use of
force.
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Today, the
Gulabi Gang has tens of thousands of women members, several male supporters
and many successful interventions to their credit. Whether it is ensuring
proper public distibution of food-grains to people below the poverty line, or
disbursement of pension to elderly widows who have no birth certificate to
prove their age, or preventing abuse of women and children, the Pink
sisterhood is in the forefront, bringing about system changes by adopting the
simplest of methods - direct action and confrontation.
Although the
group’s interventions are mostly on behalf of women, they are increasingly
called upon by men to challenge not only male authority over women, but all
human rights abuses inflicted on the weak.
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