2016

SINGLE WOMEN MARCH 

Sappho for Equality decide to mobilise single women in West Bengal in July-August 2015 based on a 2011 census report that stated India is home to about 5 crore single women; a number still rising. The areas of Lopchu-Peshok in Lamahatta Gram Panchayat was one of the primary fields owing to its highest concentration of single women in West Bengal. In december 2014, the Lopchu-Peshok Ekal Mahila Sangathan was formed and in 2016 women took ownership of the event, distributed leaflets containing their demands in their neighbourhood and workplace asking other women in the community to join the march.   On the day of the march, women gathered from remote corners of the Lopchu-Peshok area at the Tinchuley youth club grounds. Women arrived in pickup trucks, with banners aloft, shouting slogans and trooped out on reaching the grounds. Other women greeted them with headbands declaring "Onwards to Takdah" - Ekal Mahila Takdah Heero! Women in their nineties walked alongside twenty year olds and refused to stop even for a short break as they wound the 4 km mountains path to Takdah. Eventually the BDO payed heed to the their demands for pension, ration, identity documents, housing with proper sanitation and better, well-lit roads. The women wound their way back home preparing for the greater struggle ahead.