Enough is Enough; Wishing a Happy International Women’s Day to the Girls Fighting for Equality!

By R. Venkat Reddy

National Convener, M. V. Foundation

On March 8, the world celebrates International Women’s Day with great enthusiasm. Governments organize numerous official programs, and speeches flow endlessly. However, there is little attention paid at the local level to girls’ higher education and their safety. Worse still, when it comes to child marriages, some even send signals that violating the law is acceptable. There have been numerous instances where local district child protection officials were intimidated into not intervening in child marriages. Shockingly, even elected representatives have attended such weddings.

Instead of acknowledging that girls have rights and that gender discrimination exists in society, people often side with those violating these rights rather than supporting the affected girls. The policies and laws created for girls by governments and public representatives largely reflect this same mindset. The discrimination and humiliation faced by girls are considered normal and socially acceptable rather than seen as personal indignities or violations of human rights.

The New Generation of Girls is Fighting Back

However, today’s girls are determined to challenge these norms and establish new societal rules based on their rights. Members of girls’ collectives in districts like Ranga Reddy, Suryapet, Vikarabad, Gadwal, and Hyderabad have proven that gender discrimination is neither inevitable nor acceptable.

Not only are girls resisting injustice, but child rights protection platforms, village panchayats, women’s groups, and youth activists have joined forces to stop child marriages. They have confronted and restrained those harassing girls in public places like bus stops. Many individuals who once remained silent have now become allies in the fight for gender equality. Teachers, police officers, and local authorities have also started participating in efforts to uphold girls’ dignity and ensure their educational advancement.

Girls are eagerly waiting for this change in society. Realizing that discussions are happening about their future, they have begun fighting for their rightful place and equal status. They are raising their voices against child labor and demanding their right to education. Defying parental and societal pressures, they are standing up against child marriages. In villages, they have even taken the lead in hoisting the national flag during Independence Day and Republic Day celebrations—an act traditionally dominated by male youth groups.

Their determination to break free from patriarchy and gender discrimination is inspiring. They have shown remarkable courage in standing up to authorities and demanding their rights.

“Enough is Enough” – A Collective for Change

In this context, girls from various villages have come together to form an organization called “Enough is Enough” (Ika Chalu). They conduct meetings and discussions in villages, with each committee comprising 10 to 15 girls. Equipped with proper training, they engage with officials and village leaders to find solutions to their problems.

Their Non-Negotiable Principles, rooted in constitutional rights, include:

• Every child must remain in school until the age of 18.

• Girls must be given equal opportunities as boys in learning and skill development.

• Gender equality should be included as a subject in the curriculum from the first grade.

• Any argument that seeks to control girls’ independence must be rejected.

• Social spaces must be accessible to all children, regardless of gender, caste, religion, or disability.

• Youth organizations should not be divided based on gender.

• No girl should be married before the age of 18, and child marriages should be annulled by amending the 2006 Prohibition of Child Marriage Act.

Demanding Educational Priorities Over Marriage Schemes

These girls are challenging government policies that prioritize marriage over education. They strongly oppose schemes like Kalyana Lakshmi (which provides financial assistance for girls’ weddings) and advocate for a shift towards “Chaduvula Thalli Muddu” (Education is a Mother’s Blessing).

They also fight for:

• Free and reliable public transportation for first-generation female students.

• Timely availability of RTC buses for school and college students.

• Immediate action against discrimination in schools.

• Gender bias in classroom activities being addressed through direct discussions with teachers.

• Revising textbooks that portray gender stereotypes and advocating for equal representation of female authors in school curriculum.

• Ensuring that responsibilities assigned to female teachers are not disproportionately different from those given to male teachers.

Creating Safe Spaces for Girls to Speak Up

The “Enough is Enough” platform provides a safe space for girls to share their experiences of discrimination at home, in school, and in society. It also enables them to think critically about how to bring gender equality into their families, schools, and communities.

Through this platform, girls are gaining confidence to step into public spaces where they were previously unseen, asserting their right to freedom of movement. They help each other map higher education and vocational courses, ensuring that no girl is left behind due to a lack of information or support.

Girls in this movement actively:

• Identify dropouts and encourage them to rejoin school.

• Report issues like sexual harassment, child marriage, and school-related problems to local authorities.

• Organize discussions with police officials about violence and harassment.

Expanding the Movement Across Telangana

As more girls learned about the activities of “Enough is Enough”, the movement expanded to new districts, eventually forming the Telangana Girls’ Equality Federation (TASS).

During the recent TASS State-Level Meeting, girls passed resolutions demanding that the government:

• Allocate 15% of the state budget to education.

• Replace marriage-focused schemes with initiatives that promote higher education.

•  Provide free transportation for all students.

• Immediately fill teacher vacancies and resume stalled scholarships.

• Expand government degree colleges and offer all educational streams in Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas.

• Take responsibility for issuing necessary caste, income, Aadhaar, and birth certificates for students.

•  Extend free midday meals up to intermediate level and establish hostel facilities for girls pursuing higher education.

A Call for Real Commitment to Girls’ Rights

Standing with girls should not be a mere symbolic gesture. It requires strong commitment and ethical political action.

Fighting against gender discrimination and promoting equality must become a core part of governance and policy-making. Only when robust support systems are established for girls will we truly pave the way for a new social order based on justice, equality, and constitutional rights.

Girls have made it clear: “Enough is Enough.” It is time for governments and society to listen.

What’s in a name: Crazy Girls Gang of Thanda

Crazy Girls Gang! How crazy is that? At a meeting with a group of Kishore Balika Sanghams (KBS) or Adolescent Girls Committees from across the project in December 2023, the leader of the first group introduced their KBS as “We are the Crazy Girls Gang of Thanda”. We were both surprised and curious as this was a far cry from the names that the groups had given themselves earlier. Names like Mother Theresa, Rani Laxmi Bai, Savitribai Phule and PV Sindhu - all iconic women who had stood for service, nationalist fervour, education or those who had excelled in sports. But now, from village after village, the groups introduced themselves as ‘Rowdy Girls’, ‘Attitude Queens’, ‘Rising Stars’ and so on, leaving us wanting to know more about this change in mood amongst the adolescent girls in the programme. Where did this energy and attitude come from?

When questioned about these names the responses of the various groups were illustrative. The ‘Rowdy Girls’ group said “Why must boys be labelled as rowdies? We are equal to them and we want to outperform boys”. In the same vein, the ‘Attitude Queens’ explained that girls are generally silent and are not taken seriously. If they had to fight for their rights they needed to have a superior “attitude” like queens.  This was much like other groups that call themselves ‘Princess’, and ‘Veera Vanitha (Empowered Women)’. The KBS that calls itself ‘Rising Stars’ tells us that they have aspirations for education, whereas names like ‘Amulya (precious)’, ‘Ambedkar’ and ‘Lotus’ are all giving a message to society that there is no stopping girls. The ‘Youth Self Committee’ are making a point that girls need to be self-confident and rely only on themselves. Similarly, the ‘Crazy Girls Gang of Thanda’ are iconoclasts in their own way. A thanda is a tribal settlement and all these girls belong to tribal communities that have traditionally been marginalised and excluded from mainstream society. They want to convey that they are inferior to none, they are active and their spirit is limitless. And so, of course, there is also a group that calls itself ‘Freedom’ – they are aiming to respond to injustice and achieve freedom.

These names signify a clear shift in mood and self-perception among the adolescent girls. To understand how this has happened, one has to look at the development of the KBS’s in every village included in the project as well as the supporting activities that are a part of the adolescent girls’ Ika Chaalu programme. The KBS consists of girls aged 11-18 and includes girls both in and out of schools. The groups meet at regular intervals – generally once a month - the field mobilizers are always present and provide them with information and training on gender rights, existing laws and the policies of the State. They are introduced to local bodies like the police, village panchayats, Childline and other relevant institutions. They are sensitised to issues of structural inequities and patriarchal norms and are provided with the tools to address them at every step so that they can move forward towards gender equality and education.

The KBS is also a safe space where the girls share experiences of discrimination at home, in the community and in schools and come up with ideas for how they can make small shifts in the attitude of family members, teachers and the community on gender equality. They are encouraged to draw a map of their village, identifying streets, temples, Anganwadi centres, post offices, schools, gram panchayats, ration shops and other resources available in the village. This is also an occasion for discussing their lack of mobility within the village and marking places that they see as safe and unsafe. Gaining strength from each other, they start venturing out into public spaces that they had never been to before and thus claim their freedom of movement.

Those completing class 10 and secondary school education start mapping/exploring opportunities for higher education and the courses they could opt for. They also take on the task of identifying school dropouts and girls who attend schools irregularly, and start motivating them to get re-enrolled in schools. With time, the girls in the groups have gained the courage to report on issues such as sexual harassment, early marriage, problems in schools, lack of transportation for going to school to Gram Panchayats and Child Rights Protection Forums and seek their support in solving these issues.

During the Pandemic and accompanying lockdowns the KBS’s shifted online. WhatsApp groups became a vehicle for the girls to keep in touch with each other and with the field mobilizers. The lockdown was a difficult time for most families, with lack of work, and shortages of cash and food (See Corona Stories and Why Can’t they Include the History). Girls who were earlier going to school were sent to work in exploitative conditions and some parents started arranging marriages for their daughters. The WhatsApp groups allowed them to share their problems and alert the mobilizers, who could then take action, if there was talk of their own or some other girls’ marriage being arranged.

The girls emerged from the lockdowns with an acute awareness of how easily the hard-won gains of the project in changing gender norms could be reversed and with a realization that it was up to them to not let this happen. With this resolve and renewed confidence, the girls met the Sarpanches (elected heads of local government) to convince them of their need for a dedicated space where they could conduct meetings, start a library, subscribe to a newspaper, buy books for general reading, have a reading room and plan for campaigns on girls’ issues (See Gram Panchayats as Allies).  Some groups conducted local surveys on employment, job opportunities and the educational status of women versus men. In addition, they organized public functions on Independence Day, Republic Day and participated in flag hoisting – activities that were usually undertaken only by boys. There were also groups that conducted programmes along with boys and joined them in sports and games.

On their own initiative, the groups have taken collective action and submitted petitions to authorities for redressal of their grievances, they have held protest demonstrations about the lack of buses to transport them to secondary schools, about the state of toilets and lack of drinking water in schools, the appointment of school teachers, and for stopping sexual harassment on the streets and child marriage. They  have spoken  fearlessly to the police department when taking up specific issues of violence, child marriage and sexual harassment and abuse. They have achieved a measure of success in all these actions. These interactions with functionaries have given them confidence in public speaking, leadership, and interaction with the media.

More recently, the members of the KBSs have decided to consolidate their groups at the State level calling themselves Telangana Aadapillala Samanatva Samakhya  ( TASS – Telangana Adolescent Girls Federation for Gender Equality). Their plan is to become a state-wide movement so they can share their learning on gender and education rights in non-project areas. This is an exciting development and we will track the progress of this movement that has developed organically in future blogs.

What’s in a name indeed? What appears a bit “crazy” at first glance is in fact a reflection of the newfound confidence with which the girls are imbued. It is a loud and clear message that they will do everything in their power to be on par with boys and to be treated as their equals by their families, teachers and the community. These names are the next step on their journey of seeking gender justice and equality.

Evidence of Sustainable Norm Change

Part 2: Data Collected by Council for Social Development

The Hyderabad chapter of the Council for Social Development (CSD) published a research report in 2023 entitled “A Study of MV Foundations’s Intervention: Gender Equality and Adolescent Girls’ Education”. This report offers an independent validation for the evidence of norm change in the adolescent girls’ programme and forms a sequel to the information collected by MVF Field Mobilizers.

CSD collected data from 19 programme villages across 3 districts as well as from a control group of 10 villages across 4 districts to provide a comparative framework for impact assessment. The aim of the study was to understand the transformation brought about by the MVF intervention during 2015-2019 in the lives of adolescent girls before the Covid pandemic, and to assess any reversal of gains in relation to gender discrimination in the family, community, and public spaces during the lockdowns. The study found significant differences in the situation of girls between the programme and control villages on a variety of variables including the status of girls in the family, in school and in the community and in resisting early marriage. Some data from this report is presented below.

Consumption of food, and girls’ mobility constitute two important markers of gender discrimination within the family. Regarding consumption of food (in terms of girls eating last, getting smaller portions of special dishes, and being consulted about what to cook), 44% percent of respondents in the project area reported that there was discrimination against girls in the pre- intervention period. However, after the intervention this came down to 4.1%. An important observation is that the pandemic did not result in any perceptible negative impact. In the control group, 64.2% reported discrimination against girls and this did not change substantially during the pandemic.

Girls’ mobility has also shown remarkable improvements in the project area. Only 7% of girls were allowed to move around freely outside the home prior to the intervention. This improved significantly to 96% post intervention and was not negatively impacted by Covid. In the control group, 75.3% of girls reported restrictions on their movements outside the house pre-, and during, Covid Similar improvements and differences with the control group can be observed with regard to the allotment of time given to girls as opposed to boys for study and play and for decision-making within the family.

The gender-awareness activities conducted by MVF with families, in schools and in the community have resulted in positive changes in the attitude of parents, schools and the community towards adolescent girls. As many as 73.2% of parents said that they now see boys and girls as equals; 99.6% allow their daughters to attend the adolescent girls’ meetings and think that girls’ empowerment is good. The parents acknowledge that girls can now talk freely and without fear, they are taking on challenges, competing equally with boys and openly discussing issues of physical and sexual harassment and abuse. Regarding early marriage, the girls stated that earlier they had not been in a position to oppose parental decisions about their marriage and were forced to succumb to the will of their parents; only 2% reported that such discussions had taken place. Post intervention, 64% of respondents reported that there was a discussion about their marriage, but they could oppose their parents and continue their education. In 40% of these cases the parents respected the girls wishes, while the remaining sought the help of MVF mobilisers, teachers, anganwadi workers, police, Childline, the KBS and the Village Panchayat to intervene in the matter of their early marriage. During Covid, adolescent girls came under enormous pressure to get married, but they could take the help of KBS and MVF mobilisers to convince their parents otherwise. Significantly, 47% of girls actively contributed to stopping other marriages during the pandemic by informing people who could help these girls. The girls in the control group had no such support and had to give in to early marriage.

Schools are another major arena were MVF works to combat gender discrimination. Before MVFs intervention, 94.4% of girls reported experiencing discriminatory behaviour from teachers; this went down significantly to 5.6% post intervention and did not change as a result of Covid. In the control group, however, 76.5% reported discrimination pre covid and the figure did not change much at 74.1% during Covid. School enrolments for adolescent girls also showed improvements. While the majority of girls in the project area were reported to be enrolled in schools in the pre intervention period, 40% of these were in fact not attending school regularly as they were helping with domestic chores or were engaged in wage labour. This figure went down to 10% after the intervention. On the other hand, in the non-project area 91.4% of total respondents reported they were enrolled in school, but 50% of these stated they were unable to attend school regularly in the pre-Covid period.

Responses were also collected from various members of the community to assess their attitudes towards adolescent girls. This report clearly shows positive improvements in attitudes in favour of girls in the post-intervention period. More than half the respondents stated that it is the girls’ choice what clothes they wear, a significant 95% agreed that there was no problem about boys and girls playing sports together and a similar number (90%) agreed that activities conducted for girls’ empowerment were working. The contrast with the control group could not be more stark; here, the majority of respondents said that it was not acceptable for girls to wear modern dresses and 75% felt that it was good for boys and girls to maintain distance and not play games together.

The evidence from the CSD report confirms two findings: first, that the MVF villages posted far better outcomes for adolescent girls than what was observed in the control villages; and second, that these gains in the MVF villages were sustained despite the constraints and impositions of the Covid pandemic and its lockdowns. These positive outcomes can be explained by the collective power of the effective and multi-layered gender norm-change strategies implemented by the MV Foundation under the Ika Chaalu project.