The latest group of people to jump on the “selfie with” bandwagon are men’s rights group Save the Indian Family (SIF) – they’ve launched a #SelfieinPrison campaign.
Around 30 members of SIF, a NGO that helps men who they claim have been wrongfully accused cases of dowry harassment, domestic violence and rape, visited the Bhakt Ramdas prison in the Golconda Fort in Hyderabad on Saturday, for the campaign, and tweeted images of themselves on the jail premises.
Member of SIF's Hyderabad wing T R Parthasarathy told The News Minute, “The campaign started off after we accessed some data which showed that the number of married men committing suicide is twice the number of married women.”
Parthasarathy said that he had also been a victim of such “false cases” and claimed, “Laws like Section 498A in the Indian Penal Code are not gender neutral. Some men who are falsely charged and jailed, face a great deal of depression when dealing with it and this may drive them to suicide too.”
The organizers claim that the campaign will support both the men presently in jail on false charges and the ones who have been released.
“With the occurrence of sensationalized events like Rohtak sisters and Jasleen Kaur case and the proper abuse of sexual molestation and rape laws, it is becoming clear that more and more innocent men shall be framed in legal issues, and railroaded and defamed even prior to court trial,” the group wrote in a press release, while demanding an improvement in the quality of the prison reform system.
“Our studies have shown that boys are pressurized a lot to perform well and take all the responsibility. This pressure is transferred onto them even during adulthood and when they falter, there is not much support available,” Uma Challa, another SIF member told The Hindu.
She also told the newspapers that the existing laws do not benefit women as cases take several years and genuine victims are made to wait, while on the other hand, innocent men also spend years in prison before acquittal.
Here are some pictures from the campaign.
