Imphal, February 10 (MExN): A new body representing North East women has been formed to promote women’s right on land, resource etc. Known as “North East Women’s Forum”, the new body was formed during the North East Dialogue Forum (NEDF) organized “North East Women Consultation” at Imphal. The two day long consultation was held at the Youth Hostel, Khuman Lampak on February 9 and 10 with participants from Tripura, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland. A press release informing this stated that the forum resolved to work together to overcome the hurdles being faced by the women in the region. The respective state members will organize series of sensitization workshop on women related issue and patriarchal form of society, the release added. The member state have also put up an issue to fix a day for the region to observe “North East Women Day” which will be fixed in the later part of October in the next round of consultation to be held in Mizoram. The Forum will be led by Daktar Esse of Arunachal Pradesh as Convenor and Nilashri Neog of Assam as Co-convenor. Members of the forum include Renchumlo W. representing Nagaland, Sapna Tayem representing Arunachal, Sharmila Debberma – Tripura, Belsa Sangma and Apphira Syllian – Meghalaya, Elizabeth Rang – Manipur, Monti Saikia, Jollymoni Saikia, and Jironi Daimari – Assam, and Maggie L Ralte – Mizoram. According to the release, the consultation recognizing that NE women have struggled as much as men in the conflict afflicting the region acknowledged that women are also victims of domestic violence, restriction to inheritance rights, denial of human right, poverty/hunger, displacement, sexual violence etc. While stating that women have been systematically marginalized specially in the political and the domestic decision making processes, the release argued that women have extreme disadvantages to access to justice in law court as well as customary laws. “One cannot deny that the strong patriarchal form of society is also one of the contributors towards the discrimination against the women,” it added.
