Still from But What Was She Wearing? trailer on Youtube

So the news has just broken that an FIR has been filed against TVF CEO and Chief Dude Bro Arunabh Kumar, and he’s been booked under Indian Penal Code sections 354  (for sexual harassment) and 509 (for word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman).

The Hindustan Times reports that there’s no indication that he’s filed for anticipatory bail, and anyway, it’s a non-bailable offence, so it would be opposed even if he did. The police are looking to arrest him, and a team had gone to the TVF office, but Kumar was not there. The woman who has filed the FIR is allegedly not the woman who made the very first allegations against him on social media. That post, by the way, has since been suspended from Medium.

We’re not sure what will come of the TVF case, but it has definitely put workplace sexual harassment back in the public eye. Filmmaker Vaishnavi Sundar has been doing some in-depth research on the subject for well over four months now (long before these allegations at TVF came to light of course), for a film that she’s doing on workplace sexual harassment. While the film has nothing to do with the TVF case, it could still go a long in way in helping people understand exactly what happens in cases of workplace sexual harassment, especially after cases are filed.

The film, called But what was she wearing? examines the Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act of 2013, and “juxtaposes the expectations and realities of seeking redressal” for workplace sexual harassment under this Act. Which is interesting, because many of us know about the existence of this law and the earlier Vishaka Guidelines that it builds upon, but not that much about how exactly it works, and what the potential for receiving justice under it in real terms really is. The film explores both successful and unsuccessful stories of legal cases, and explores the cultures behind these cases and results. It also looks at the idea of workplace harassment outside of walled offices, and in industries that don’t operate out of conventional offices.

Watch the trailer here:

The post This Upcoming Film Will Help Us Understand What Happens After Cases of Workplace Sexual Harassment are Filed appeared first on The Ladies Finger.

Photo via Brightsblog.wordpress.com

Emergency Contraceptive Pills (ECPs) have remained unofficially banned in Tamil Nadu since 2005. This is despite the clear Guidelines for Administration of Emergency Contraceptive Pills by Health Care Providers, which were released by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in November 2008, and maintain that ECPs can be provided safely by a healthcare provider, such as doctors, nurses, midwives, pharmacists, paramedics, family welfare assistants, health assistants, and community-based health workers.

This September I revived the dialogue around ECPs in a piece which contemplates why there is such little discussion on the subject of the unofficial ban. Together with the good folks at the grassroots organisation Jhatkaa, I was able to gather  wider attention to this issue through an online petition. After we had collected over 2000 signatures supporting the petition to lift the ban on emergency contraceptive pills, we got in touch with S. Abdul Khader, Director of Drugs Control.

Emergency contraceptives have been a subject of intense debate for having become a matter of moral concern, rather than what it should be: a purely medical concern affecting sexually active women. After two months of email and telephonic exchanges, thanks to the petition, we finally have some good news! The Drug Control Director sent us the following response:

“A proposal has been submitted to Drug Consultative Committee, to include the Levonorgestrol 0.75/1.5mg Tablets in S.No. 15 of Schedule K of the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules 1945, so that these Emergency Contraceptive Pills can be sold as over-the-counter drugs without the prescription of a Registered Medical Practitioner.”

This proposal to increase the availability and accessibility of ECPs is now being considered by the Drugs Technical Advisory Committee (DTAC). The Drugs Controller General of India Dr. GN Singh and the DTAC are meeting in one month to discuss the proposal and make a decision. Dr. Singh himself acknowledged the proposal and promised to deliberate on it carefully before making a decision. He has also said: “The idea behind the proposal is to increase availability and accessibility of the medicine in remote areas and therefore, it is important to also keep ECPs “affordable””.

This would mean that an emergency contraceptive pill (Levonorgestrol 0.75/1.5mg) can be purchased at a drugstore by anybody of a legal age, without a prescription from a doctor. One can only speculate on the enormity of this news, considering just how many women go through unnecessary, painful (and often unaffordable) abortions, continue to get pregnant against their will, or worse, are forced to keep a child born out of rape. This step, after 10 years of the unofficial ban, is very significant. With this proposal, women across India might be able to exercise their reproductive rights, over the counter.

There is a lot of information online about the efficacy of ECPs, precautions to be taken and the side effects of the medicines. Providing women access to this information along with the medicines would put women in control of their choices without being infantilised and having their decisions taken for them by men.  A moral ban on ECPs is merely a short-term fix for a larger problem of lack of sex and reproductive education in schools. To that effect, I am hoping to produce helpful videos explaining how ECPs work, containing personal anecdotes from those who have used the pill, as well as advice from medical practitioners.

Having said that, there are some important things you need to know as a consumer of emergency contraceptive pills.

An emergency contraceptive pill (also known as the morning-after pill) is not an abortion pill. It should not be consumed regularly or used as an alternative to primary methods of birth control like condoms or regular birth control pills. As Dr Louisa Draper makes clear, “The ‘morning-after pill’ should be used in emergencies only. It helps to prevent pregnancy if you have had unprotected sex or when your contraception has failed. You should not take it on a regular basis, as there are much better forms of contraception.

The ones that are consumed everyday are called ‘birth control pills.’ You may remember the advertisement of a shy woman on Doordarshan using ‘Mala D’ – the brand of oral contraceptive pill that is provided at a subsidised price under the Contraceptive Social Marketing Program of the government through HLFPPT (Hindustan Latex Family Planning Promotion Trust).

The most common side effects are nausea, vomit and menstrual abnormalities (your period may come earlier, later, with more or less blood than usual); more rare side effects are fatigue, breast tenderness, headache and abdominal pain. Here is a friendly FAQ.

It is heartening to observe that Dr. Singh understands the need for the ‘moral free’ availability of ECPs, and the impact this will have on the lives of women all over India. We are fully appreciative of this move by the Director of Drug Control and the DTAC: it is indeed an enormous step forward for women’s reproductive rights. This is of particular relevance in a country where morality holds high grounds, often sidestepping the autonomy women ought to have with their bodies. We also cannot reiterate enough the importance of your support. You helped us convince the TN Director to take action after all these years; the verdict of DTAC will be made available after the meeting in January. Once again, you can sway this crucial decision and benefit women all over India with your signatures. Please do share the petition and let more people know about it. Sign the petition here.

Vaishnavi Sundar is a writer, filmmaker and a feminist. She is the founder of Women Making Films, a community for female filmmakers to come together and collaborate. 

The post After 10 Years, Tamil Nadu is Finally Trying to Lift its Unofficial Ban on Emergency Contraceptives appeared first on The Ladies Finger.

Birth Control, by Sarah Mirk via Flickr CC by 2.0

It was 2002 when the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) made Emergency Contraceptive Pills (ECPs) available in India, and 2005 when ECPs were made over-the-counter drugs. Ever since the legal availability of ECPs in 2002, we have had a female Chief Minister for four full terms, and yet the the situation is pretty grim for women living in Tamil Nadu. Maybe it is even ironic that Madurai, Tanjore, Vellore and Salem have been selected to be promoted as ‘smart cities’ in 2016. And rated the safest city in India, Chennai apparently attracts 45 percent of health tourists visiting India. As such, it is termed “India’s health capital”.

I assumed the occasional rants by women about not finding ECPs were rare, and trusted Chennai to be as progressive as it claims. This was until I set out to look for ECPs myself and found that an over-the-counter prescription free drug which is available in several cities in India, is not available in its health capital. I walked into a regular medical shop and was told that they were ‘out of stock’. A male friend walked up to the same medical store and asked for an I-Pill , and met the same fate. We went to prominent hospitals and walked up to their 24×7 medical stores  — the answer was  still no. Most women in Chennai know of that one store that definitely sells it, but I had to wait till the morning and chances were, they would be out too. It is funny that about a year ago, another woman on a reddit thread said the exact same thing about preserving the details of the store.

A handful of articles have been written on this ill-defined ban. For example, this article from 2006 elucidates on how despite legal availability, the TN government’s drug controller seized stocks worth Rs 50 lakh from Chennai’s pharmacies which they assumed to be ‘abortion pills’. The Drugs and Cosmetics Act empowers state government drug controllers to seize drugs only if they do not adhere to prescribed standards, or are misbranded, adulterated, and spurious. The drugs seized were contraceptives based on levonorgestrel, and according to Dr Nirmala Jaishankar, a gynaecologist at Apollo Hospitals in Chennai, “This [ECP] isn’t an abortion pill. If pregnancy has already happened, this pill won’t be effective.”

Sean Ellis via Flickr CC by 2.0

And in this article from 2008, senior obstetrician-gynaecologist Dr Jayashree Gajaraj, then president of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Society of South India, said, “Three years ago, when the product was just launched in the market, we told women that there was a revolution in the offing. Today, many women are aware of the option, but they don’t have access to the pill.” N Selvaraju, who was director of drug control in Tamil Nadu at the time and gave in to the demands of the “protesters”, said, “We are not against women’s rights, but this is a moral concern. The advertising of this drug will mean that women will think, ‘I can do anything and there is an easy way not to get pregnant’. We can’t allow such an attitude to grow.” The present members of The Drugs Control Administration, Tamil Nadu can be found here. “Moral Concern”,  mind you  —  not clinical, not psychological, not even rational. It is simply patriarchal.

One could go to a doctor to get a prescription which would probably make it easy to purchase ECPs, but we are talking about a ticking time bomb here. And not to mention, some doctors do smack their lips at the first opportunity to provide patriarchal lessons to their patients. Abortion rights in this country is a completely different topic. Of course it is not illegal in India (yet) but the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act points out that both surgical and chemical abortion can be performed only on prescription and after permission has been issued by Resident Medical Officer of a government hospital. Why protest against a culture of sexual freedom for women, irrationally? Why isn’t rape, child marriage, or sex between people with STDs considered, while there is no noise around the over-the-counter sale of prescription-only drugs such as sildenafil citrate (aka viagra), which is available for as cheap as Rs 11? A drug that enables a man’s sex drive. This link provides a list of the almost endless effects of using viagra. As for an ECP: “It doesn’t have any serious side-effects  —  the most common is nausea caused by the flood of hormones. But take it with care. Too much ingestion of hormones can throw off your regular cycle,” says Dr Vinutha Arunachalam, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Apollo Hospitals. Here is a meticulously drafted FAQ for those who might still have doubts.

Birth Control by Gwydion M Williams via Flickr CC by 2.0

In other states where it is not illegal, and on all leading e-commerce sites, ECPs are sold and delivered all over India. Popular brands include Cipla’s I-Pill, Unwanted-72 from Mankind Pharma, EC2 by Zydus, Norlevo from Win Medicare and E-Pill by Panchsheel Organics. That’s great ,  but what about the risk of not getting them within 72 hours? I know of some friends who stock up on I-Pills whenever a friend from Bombay or Bangalore visits. And I also know women (and men) who have no idea that such a ban exists in TN, perhaps because they never needed  ECPs —  good for them, and condoms FTW. In a country where rape is rampant and child marriage is still being practiced, providing ECPs is the least a government can do to protect a woman’s choice and dignity.

I stumbled upon an article last year in The Telegraph about the arrival of “male contraceptive pills” and how it is going to change “everything”. For all we know, in India, ‘protestors’ might want this banned too, because OMG, pills for men would mean a lack of ‘manhood’ —  and we can’t accept that, can we?

Vaishnavi Sundar is a writer, filmmaker and a feminist. She is the founder of Women Making Films, a community for female filmmakers to come together and collaborate. 

The post OMG, Still No Emergency Contraceptive Pills if You Live in Tamil Nadu? appeared first on The Ladies Finger.