NEW DELHI, March 2, Reuter: India’s Minister in charge of Women’s Affairs today opened a National Women’s Conference by telling delegates not to make a “National Obsession” out of sex based grievances.
“You can have a complaint and that could be looked into, but there is no use building up a grievance,” Minister for Human Resources Development, P.V. Narasimha Rao, 66, told a conference organized by the ministry’s department of women.
The two-day conference is con side ring ways to implement laws to improve the lot of Indian women.
Millions of Indian women, who often do heavy manual Labour in industry, construction and agriculture, are bartered/annually for cash and goods in arranged marriages.
Hundreds are murdered by their new families each year when their parents later refuse to increase the dowry, according to police.
The molesting of women, known as “Eve Teasing”, rampant. on the country’s overcrowded transport system.
The Press Trust of India (PTI) said Rao told delegates from women’s organizations that economic independence for women should be a top priority but social harmony must not be disturbed to achieve it.
“We cannot afford to have disharmony in another area of society”, PTI quoted him as saying.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 6, 1987
