Meghalaya tops in domestic violence

The state had the highest rate of the crime in the region where 32 pc of married women admitted to have been beaten.

Meghalaya has the highest rate of domestic violence in the northeast, an activist of an NGO said on Saturday quoting figures from the National Family Health Survey.

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Countering the notion that violence against women was not an issue in the matriarchal society of Meghalaya, Angela Rangad, a member of 'Freedom Project, said the survey indicated that the state had the highest rate of domestic violence in the region where 32 per cent of married women interviewed admitted to have been beaten or physically maltreated.

Rangad, who was speaking at a seminar on 'Human Rights: Experiences and Initiatives', said the phenomenon was higher in the urban areas. 86 per cent of women (interviewed) believed that they deserved to be beaten.

"This shows that the women here too hold the idea of being inferior. It is also evident that double standards, stereotype roles and values associated with men and women, which inevitably lead to inequality, exist here too", she said.

Another NGO leader spearheading right to information movement, Michael Syiem, said reports of various corruption related enquiries instituted by Meghalaya government were conveniently swept under the carpet before the central Right to Information (RTI) Act 2005 was enacted.

"But now with the Meghalaya government implementing the Act in letter and spirit, information sought from the state government can be received within 30 days and failing which the Public Information Officer will be fined from his personal account", Syiem told the seminar organised by the Synod college.