PANAJI
The humiliation of women representatives of comunidades by their male counterparts at a recent convention saw the women’s group condemning the incident and demanding amendment to the Code of Comunidades to promote equality.
Several women representatives from different walks of life held a meeting at Azad Maidan, Panaji on Thursday to express solidarity with the five women, participating at the Comunidades of Goa to propose inclusivity of all genders as descendants. The Convention was held on January 14 when the male-dominated meeting went off track when offensive remarks were made at all women.
Attorney of Verna Comunidade Maria Lina Gama Martins, referring to the agenda, pointed out that women are prevented entry at the membership stage of the comunidade as per para 1, Article 20 of Code of comunidade and proposed that ‘and their male descendants by male lineage’ be dropped and amended with ‘and their descendants by lineage.’
She further demanded that all descendants of gaonkars, irrespective of gender receive the ‘zonn’ from their respective comunidades as other speakers including the Treasurer of Chinchinim Comunidade Saadia supported the resolution.
As per the current law, while women can be shareholders in some comunidades, daughters of gaonkars cannot be members in some comunidades as sons can.
“This, while women toil on the land and in the fields along with men… We support the women who spoke for the inclusivity of women in the Code of Comunidade. However, some male delegates used the platform of the Convention to ridicule, demean and insult the women. The women delegates were heckled by some male delegates, and we condemn this,” Convener of NGO Baiancho Saad Sabina Martins said while spearheading the solidarity meeting.
She slammed that male delegates digressed outside the scope of the Code of Comunidades, talking about cooking, cleaning and bearing children rather than focusing on the Convention agenda.
“Discriminatory attitudes, laws and social practices have already resulted in the declining sex ratio of girls in Goa. It is a matter of concern that Goa has a skewed sex ratio of 838 girls to 1000 boys,” Martins said adding, "We specifically call out to address these within the scope of the Code of Comunidade to arrest this worrying statistic and restore parity."
The women activists reiterated their support for the resolution at the Convention seeking to discuss the issue of membership of women in a time-bound manner.
