Women need guidance to walk through the doors that laws have opened
In Chennai, legal advocates and gender equality experts gathered to confront a quiet paradox at the heart of Indian society: the laws meant to protect women exist, but the pathways to reach them remain obscured by ignorance, institutional failure, and deeply rooted patriarchal attitudes. The consultation, convened under the framework of Beijing +30, revealed that legal empowerment is not merely a matter of legislation but of guidance, cultural transformation, and the political will to enforce what has already been promised. What emerged was a recognition that justice, for women, begins not in courtrooms but in classrooms — and not only with girls, but with boys.
- Women across India are surrounded by protective laws they cannot navigate, leaving them stranded at the threshold of institutions that were built for them but never made truly accessible.
- Civil society's ability to monitor enforcement is shrinking precisely when it is needed most — POSH Act committees go unestablished, uninspected, and unenforced in workplaces that should be held accountable.
- A boy tearing a page from a textbook became a symbol of something systemic: the underfunding of prevention means violence is addressed after the fact, while its cultural roots grow undisturbed.
- Advocates are pushing for investment in early education — particularly with boys — as the foundational intervention that legal reform alone cannot achieve.
- The gathering signaled a shift in framing: access to justice is not only a legal infrastructure problem but a societal commitment question, one that demands both institutional repair and cultural reckoning.
On a Thursday afternoon in Chennai, legal experts and gender equality advocates gathered to examine a paradox that quietly persists across India: women have laws on their side, but many do not know how to use them — and even when they do, the systems meant to protect them often fall short.
Advocate B.S. Ajeetha, practicing before the Madras High Court, framed the challenge directly. Laws written on paper are not enough. Women need guidance, support, and an understanding of which institutions exist to help them and how to enter those spaces. Her remarks came during a State-level consultation on Beijing +30, organized by Ekta Foundation, the Justice Shivraj V. Patil Foundation, Women's Collective, and the National Alliance of Women.
Esther of ActionAid Association noted that while protective legislation has grown in recent years, implementation remains inconsistent and the space for civil society to monitor it has been shrinking. She pointed to the POSH Act as a telling example: companies are required to establish Internal Complaints Committees, yet many have not done so, and few are being held accountable for the gap. Decent work — safe, fair, and dignified employment — remains an unfulfilled promise for too many women.
The roots of the problem, advocates argued, run deeper than bureaucratic failure. Stegana Jency of the Centre for Child Rights and Development described a boy who scribbled over and tore a page depicting the female reproductive system during a sexuality education class — a small act that revealed something much larger about how women's bodies and autonomy are culturally perceived. Prevention of gender-based violence in India, she noted, is chronically underfunded, and the real work must begin with children, especially boys, before attitudes harden into behavior.
What the room ultimately converged on was a truth harder to legislate than any single act: access to justice is not only about courtrooms and procedures. It is about a society that has decided, at its foundations, that women's safety and equality are worth building systems that actually work.
On a Thursday afternoon in Chennai, a room full of legal experts and gender equality advocates gathered to discuss a paradox that has quietly persisted across India: women have laws on their side, but many don't know how to use them, and even when they do, the systems meant to protect them often fail.
Advocate B.S. Ajeetha, who practices before the Madras High Court, put it plainly. Women need more than laws written on paper. They need guidance. They need support. They need to understand which institutions exist to help them and how to walk through those doors. "Empowerment is also to guide women to justice through the law," she said during the State-level consultation on Debriefing Beijing +30, an event organized by Ekta Foundation, the Justice Shivraj V. Patil Foundation, and Women's Collective in collaboration with the National Alliance of Women.
The conversation that followed revealed a system with significant cracks. Esther, an associate director at ActionAid Association, noted that while laws protecting women have multiplied in recent years, their actual implementation remains inconsistent. The space for civil society organizations to monitor and enforce these laws has been shrinking. She pointed to a specific example: the Workplace Sexual Harassment Act, known as the POSH Act, requires companies to establish Internal Complaints Committees to handle harassment cases. Yet many organizations have not set up these committees, and few are checking whether they exist or function properly. Decent work—employment that is safe, fair, and dignified—remains an unfulfilled promise for many women.
The roots of the problem run deeper than bureaucratic gaps. Stegana Jency, director of the Centre for Child Rights and Development, described a moment that crystallized the challenge. During a sexuality education class, a boy scribbled over and tore a page from a textbook showing the female reproductive system. It was a small act of destruction, but it revealed something larger: a culture in which women's bodies and autonomy are treated as objects to be defaced or controlled. Jency emphasized that prevention of gender-based violence in India remains chronically underfunded. The real work, she argued, must begin with children—especially boys—learning to see women as equals, not as lesser beings to be managed or dominated.
This is where the conversation turned toward something harder to measure but perhaps more essential than any single law. Breaking patriarchal systems requires starting early, before attitudes calcify into behavior. It means teaching boys to understand sexuality and gender not as hierarchies but as human realities. It means investing in prevention rather than waiting for violence to occur and then trying to prosecute it. The advocates in the room understood that access to justice is not only about courtrooms and legal procedures. It is about a society that has decided women's safety and equality matter enough to build systems that actually work.
Citações Notáveis
Women need greater support to access the laws. Empowerment is also to guide women to justice through the law.— Advocate B.S. Ajeetha, Madras High Court
The implementation of these policies and laws has been difficult. There is a need to promote decent work and monitor whether Internal Complaints Committees have been set up.— Esther, ActionAid Association associate director
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why do you think women don't use the laws that already exist to protect them?
It's not that the laws are secret. It's that women often don't know which institution to approach, how to navigate it, or whether they'll be believed when they get there. Knowledge alone isn't empowerment.
So it's a gap between what's written and what's real.
Exactly. A law is just words until someone implements it. And right now, the people who could monitor implementation—civil society groups—are being squeezed out of the space to do that work.
You mentioned the POSH Act. What's actually broken there?
Companies are supposed to have committees to handle workplace harassment complaints. But many haven't set them up. And nobody's checking. It's like having a fire exit that nobody installed.
That sounds like a compliance problem.
It is, but it's also a values problem. If we're not investing in preventing violence from happening in the first place, we're just treating symptoms.
How do you prevent something that's rooted in how people think?
You start with children. A boy tearing up a page about female anatomy—that's not random. That's learned behavior. If we teach boys differently, from the beginning, we change what patriarchy looks like in the next generation.
That sounds like a long game.
It is. But it's the only game that actually works.