“Menstruation is God’s gift. It is natural. There is no point in banning menstruating women from places of worship. Didn’t Lord Ayyappa too come from his mother’s womb, and wasn’t menstruation an important part of his birth?” asked Sushma Sahu, member of the National Commission for Women, commenting on the debate about the entry of women to the Sabarimala Ayyappa Temple.
Speaking to The Hindu on the sidelines of a national seminar on human trafficking here on Monday, Ms. Sahu said the commission would always support women in their rightful claim for entry to any place of worship.
A victim of domestic violence and abuse herself, Ms. Sahu spoke highly of the ongoing ‘Me too’ campaign on social media. “Now, we know there are so many women who have gone through sexual offences, and that those cases did not reach us. It is a challenge to society’s tradition of silence on sexual offences,” she observed. However, she asked women to be cautious and responsible while using social media.
Expressing concern over the influential and the rich often escaping punishment in cases of sexual offences, Ms. Sahu said: “As a woman it pains me. A woman goes through a lot of trials in her life, and her desires and aptitudes often do not matter. Women need to be given the opportunity to prove their worth.” She added that she herself had faced the social stigma associated with giving birth to a girl child.
“But I believe the future belongs to women. It is usually women who tie ‘rakhi’ on men seeking protection. For the first time in the history of India, a woman is in charge of the protection of the entire country,” she said referring to Defence Minister Nirmala Seetharaman.
