The Struggle to be Human: Women’s Human Rights

The Indian Constitution as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantee to every person the right to life, liberty, security, dignity and the right to be free from slavery or servitude. However, a number of women are routinely tortured, mutilated, battered to death, burnt alive, bought and sold as sex slaves-only because they are women. The author explores precisely this spiralling violence within marriage and in the household. She examines how the rhetoric of rights in the Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have remained only on paper. Violence against women has been recognised as a human rights violation but it has not gone beyond that. This book is authenticated by stark case studies that expose the abject failure of the government and society to ensure equality and gender justice even after more than 50 years of Independence. The author suggests that we recommit ourselves to guarantee women??s human rights. Women indeed deserve a more humane and gender-sensitive world.