Why Instant And Populist Anti-Rape Laws Will Fail To Deliver Justice

Fueled by public demands for quick justice, and pushed through hastily with no effort at addressing systemic issues, these laws cannot bring real change, say experts


Why Justice Remains Elusive For Adivasi Victims Of Sexual Violence

 In 2017, a 15-year-old Adivasi student in Odisha’s Cuttack district was raped by a group of men wearing police uniforms as she was returning from the […]


Rape Survivors From Nomadic Tribes Get No State Support, Compensation Or Counselling

Stigmatised and doubted when they report sexual violence, women from NT DNT communities are never informed about the resources the state provides to rape survivors


How Gender, Mobility, and Disability Barriers Prevent Many From Voting In India

At least 986 million Indians should be voting this year. But it is likely the final numbers will be many millions less. We explain why


How Evictions And Resettlement Upend Women’s Working Lives

In Delhi, evictions get you resettlement housing but in areas with little access to job, services or essential facilities. And it is the women who struggle the most with travel and livelihood options


‘With UCC, The State Has Become A Father Figure That Sanctions Who We Love’

In a wide-ranging interview on the controversial Uniform Civil Code swiftly pushed through by the Uttarakhand government, feminist legal scholar Surbhi Karwa explains how the law has weaponised the language of women’s rights without actually advancing them


Bribes, Bullying, Sexual Harassment: Why Workers In A Delhi Hospital Want An End To Outsourced Hiring

Striking sanitation workers in Delhi’s Burari Hospital have accused private hiring companies of corrupt practices and sexual harassment


Assam’s Family Size Norm For New Initiative Could Hit Its Marginalised Women Most

Linking economic welfare schemes for women to their family size will further limit women’s participation in work and increase their vulnerabilities, argue experts


How A Regressive Transgender Act Was Finally Thrown Out

The Telangana High Court recently struck down the state’s Eunuch’s Act which criminalised the entire transgender community. We explain why it was outdated and violative of citizen rights


Five Years On, Odisha’s Transgender Persons Yet To Get Land Under State Scheme

A range of issues – state apathy, knotty conditions, local hostility – hobble the programme


Homes Razed, Tughlaqabad’s Women Agitate For Rehabilitation Rights

The bulldozers arrived with no notice, women allege, leaving them stranded without shelter or belongings


The 19th Century Woman Who Challenged the Image of Indian Coupledom

Historian Uma Chakravarti on Pandita Ramabai’s radical photographs of conjugality and its discontents.


Why Society Needs To Reimagine Care Work, Support We Cannot Do Without

Currently, India’s legal structure shows little respect for care work of any kind


Intersectionality, The Missing Link In The Women’s Reservation Bill

Intersectionality has long been ignored in India’s mainstream feminist movement as a critical issue


How The Two-Finger Test Perpetuates Rape Myths Centred Around ‘Honour’

Trigger Warning: This piece contains mentions of sexual violence which may be triggering for readers. On October 31, 2022 the Supreme Court of India once again […]


Navigating Statelessness: How Laws Fail Bangladeshi Trafficking Survivors In India

Nafeesa Bibi* (36) was 16 when she left her home in a Bangladesh village and swam across the Ichhamati river into Bongaon in the North 24 […]


Why India’s Abortion Law Still Lacks Principles Of Reproductive Justice

India’s abortion law has evolved over 50 years to become seemingly progressive but it is still not rooted in the idea of reproductive justice, say historians […]


Why India’s Abortion Law Needs To Be Rid Of Moralism

Last week, the Supreme Court passed an interim order allowing an unmarried woman to abort a 24-week pregnancy. The court ordered the constitution of a Medical […]


How Maternity Leave Policies Discriminate Against Adoptive Mothers And Children

It took nearly a year for Virginia* and her husband to bring home the four siblings they had asked to adopt. The children were aged between […]