“The biggest achievement of the women’s movement has been the raising of awareness regarding discriminatory laws, and bringing a lot of issues of violence out into the open. Earlier, when the struggle began for women’s empowerment, issues of rape and incest couldn’t even be mentioned — but today, everyone is concerned. Research is being done on such issues, statistics collected and publicity generated.

“One of the most urgent gender issues that still continues pertains to the prevalent unequal social relations: these underlie discrimination of women, the denial of women’s inheritance rights, the curse of violence against them, their dishonour, abuse and killing, the denial of their basic rights and so much more.

“While there is no denying the fact that a lot remains to be done, progress has been made on many fronts. Laws must be made operational, and women need to be informed of all that is available to them under the law and they need to understand how they can access it.”