Resolution on State Violence against Women

The Unity Congress-9^th Congress of the CPI (Maoist) condemns the increasing atrocities against women all over the country, especially the repression and atrocities of the State forces and state sponsored vigilante groups. The most widespread and brutal attacks have been on Adivasi women in Dandakaranya in the name of Salwa Judum. Both the para-military forces and counter-revolutionary vigilante Salwa Judum groups have resorted to raping and killing many women in inhuman ways in their campaign to crush the revolutionary movement and the spirit of the people. Budri being was shot dead on her way to the Basaguda market. , Korsa lakke and Sukki of Korma village were gang raped and killed while returning after performing sentry duties for protecting the village. or Penta of Arwel village was being killed by the Salwa Judum goons in the Dornapal camp because she refused to bring the rest of her villagers to the camp. These are only a tip of the ice berg a few recent examples of the atrocities on Adivasi women in of Bastar.

They have forcibly driven thousands out of their homes and villages and detained them in relief camps which are in fact concentration camps. The conditions there are sub-human. Women and children are the worst sufferers of these conditions, their physical and mental health have been badly affected. Sexual exploitation is also going on in these camps. Even teenage adivasi girls recruited as Special Police Officers (SPO) by the Government are being subject to sexual exploitation. This is similar to the situation in Kashmir and the North-East where the masses are struggling for national liberation. Manipuri women struggling against the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act have been subjected to atrocities by the Army and Sharmila Irom on a hunger strike too has been repeatedly arrested.

To suppress the revolutionary peasant struggle in West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia the police and social fascist CPM goons are perpetrating different types of heinous crimes against women.

Women active in political movements especially the revolutionary movements are being arrested in large numbers. The jails of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Maharashtra, and Karnataka Orissa bear witness to this.

In Malkangiri of Orissa ten women were imprisoned in September 2004 and not yet released. In Koraput district, people protested against rape of village women by CRPF jawans of Kalab camp.

In Orissa, comrade Shobhadi, the inspiration and driving force of a vast rural women's movement in Jharkhand, Bihar and Orissa, and comrades Lata and Jaya, District Committee Members in Andhra Pradesh, were is incarcerated in Orissa on trumped up charges.

Some of them like Comrade Chaiti Pallo of Dandakaranya and comrade Lalitha of Gondia, (Maharashtra) have been sentenced to life imprisonment,. and sSeveral others are serving sentences in Orissa, West Bengal, Karnataka etc. The whereabouts of several women activists arrested by the Jharkhand police is unknown. State sponsored vigilante groups like the Cobras are threatening progressive women activists in Andhra Pradesh. Women PLGA members are being tortured and shot down even after arrest. In the last two years more than 50 women have been thus killed. The most recent is the cold-blooded killing of comrade Karuna by the special task force of Andhra police. Andhra police trample underfoot even the basic human rights by way of hand-cuffing the arrested women. They brought the wounded women activists who participated in Gangavaram (Visakhapatnam) fishery workers' agitation to hospital with hand-cuffs.

To suppress the peasant movement against land acquisition in Singur in West Bengal the social fascist CPM goons raped and killed Tapasi Malik, a leader of the movement. In the movement in Kalinganagar against land acquisition among those shot dead include women. In brief, the ruling classes and their armed forces are using violence against women as one of their weapons.

Brahminical violence against women continues unabated. The brutal rape and killing of Surekha and Priyanka in Khairlanjhi by state-backed upper caste forces is a horrifying example of this. At the same time the spread of a debased patriarchal culture by the imperialists has led to an alarming increase in molestation and rapes of women in big cities. Women's insecurities have increased.

The Unity Congress—9^th Congress calls upon all sections of women and democrats to oppose the violence being perpetrated by the state forces and vigilante forces on women. It also calls upon them to oppose the violence in the name of Salva Judum, the cold-blooded killings in the name of encounters and the arrest of politically active women. It We further demands the immediate release of comrade Shobhadi CCM and other revolutionary political prisoners. This Congress calls upon all oppressed, exploited women to rise up against oppression and join the revolutionary movement for liberat ion.