In the wake of increasing violence against young women in India, this project sought primarily to study women’s experiences of empowerment and violence in India. A basic premise here is that it is empowered women who have, and are making more choices (than those who are disempowered); they also become targets for violence, perhaps more so than others. Work outside the home or gainful employment is an empowering element of women’s lives in India today.
Particularly, work in the Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) sector has enabled women to move away from stereotypical occupations like teaching and nursing, and also gain more financial mobility than those with comparable qualifications in other sectors. This CBPS study seeks to examine whether and how such women, together with experiencing empowerment due to their work in the sector, also encounter violence in three spaces –
1) At work 2) At home 3) In public spaces (such as when commuting to work, often at irregular hours due to shifts).
Major findings of the study were presented at Annual Seminar 2015 and are available here.
