Over 58% of the people living in tier-II towns in Haryana believe that men have complete right over their wives after marriage, and are rightful in dictating terms to them. A total of 88% also agree that a woman’s greatest happiness lies in bringing up her family.
A total of 1,225 participants from 10 government schools and five Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) in Haryana participated in the survey, which was conducted by the Martha Farrell Foundation. The participants were mainly from Sonepat and adjoining towns.
The survey revealed that 43% of the participants believe that women invite sexual harassment with their attire and behaviour, 21% believed that it is okay for the husband to hit his wife to discipline her and 34% believed that women should not take travelling jobs.
“The youth are the foundation of tomorrow’s India. A large part of our work at Martha Farrell Foundation involves working with youth. We believe that a young person’s personal interaction and positive experiences in adolescence can turn into lifelong commitment to make sustained contributions to community causes. As active citizens, studies such as this help to shape the work of youth champions from our programmes to nurture a gender-just society,” said Nandita Bhatt, director at Martha Farrell Foundation.
The survey was not without some positive points with 85% of participants believing that every woman should report issues of assault and seek support, and 81%stating that they are against dowry.
“We are beginning to see some change in the attitudes of the youth. This is a positive trend that can be attributed to decades of work put in by civil society organisations such as ours. However, we need to understand that any work that involves behaviour change has to be a sustained effort and must involve the active participation of the youth,” she said.
