The recent gruesome attacks on a citizen in Delhi has forced Indian government authorities to ramp-up the current surveillance systems, institute harsher punishments, have greater police presence and so on, all of which hitherto, in their earlier levels of application, has been rather unsuccessful in containing the prevailing violent and corrupt anti-social behaviour; on the contrary the situation is turning more and more vicious and violent. Therefore, it is clear that enhanced policing and punishments is not going to make any qualitative difference in the existing trend. If a turn-around is expected then the only way forward is to focus on developing new mentality of people.
Keeping this in mind, a thematic concert and conference titled ‘WWW – Walk With Women’ in association with Propel Global, Friends of Police and the a popular Indian rock band White Lady was organised. The event witnessed the launch of two powerful and strategic social initiatives — ACE (Accelerated Citizen Evolution) and AWAS (A Woman A Sister).
AWAS is the brainchild of Dr. Prateep V Philip, ADGP (Crime), in association with Friends of Police. It is a concept that every Indian will treat every woman, besides his spouse or fiancé, as his sister and family. This way you will nurture, protect and honour every woman and not see her as an object of sexual desire.
Plan of action
AWAS aims at having mass movements promoting the transformation of the attitude of men towards women and the vice-versa. This will also be governed and supported by Friends of Police. This initiative will operate with a two pronged approach with governance though the legal process and education through mass media. AWAS is already becoming a popular concept through social networking sites such as Facebook.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Prateep Philip had quoted “More than chemical castration of rape convicts, we must create awareness that a woman is not a sex object. To treat a woman like a sister, to protect, defend, support, and not to harass, tease, molest, rape, leer, and so on. This will result in an emotional and intellectual castration of people as a preventive measure. There is only a letter that differentiates ‘beast’ and ‘best’. That letter ‘a’ stands for attitude. Mutual attitudes of the genders need to be transformed that every Indian citizen be enlightened to regard every woman other than a spouse as a sister.”
The official launch of AWAS was held at WCC. The launch also saw students from various city colleges form a human chain on College Road.
