This is a video I found made by an Indian woman about the Gulabi Gang – women who are fighting government corruption and male violence and promoting women’s empowerment in an empoverished area of India. The woman who leads the group was sold into ‘marriage’ as a child, bearing her first child a few years later. That makes her a child sexual abuse survivor. Good for her fighting back! You go warrior women!
“A rambunctious and fearless posse recognizable by their pink-colored saris, the Pink Gang is the nemesis of violent husbands and inept government officials. Having personally suffered abuse, members of the vigilante club thrash abusive men, wife beaters and rapists, confront and shame wrongdoers and storm local police stations to accost lackadaisical cops.
Formed in 2006 by Sampat Pal Devi, 45, who was sold into marriage at nine and became a mother at 13, the gang challenges everything that is unfair and unjust, like some gang of desperados for justice on India’s wilder fringe. “Nobody comes to our help in these parts. The officials and the police are corrupt and anti-poor. So sometimes we have to take the law into our own hands. At other times, we prefer to shame the wrongdoers. But we’re not a gang in the usual sense of the term. We’re a gang for justice,” Devi told a TV news channel recently.
Fed up with a corrupt system and social discrimination, what finally drove Devi to launch the Pink Gang was the tale of her sister, who was dragged by her hair around a courtyard by her alcoholic husband. This last straw led Devi to “teach erring men a lesson.” She rounded up other women in her neighborhood and confronted the abusive brother-in-law with whatever “weapons” they could muster — walking sticks, iron rods, a child’s cricket bat. He was then chased into a sugarcane field and thrashed by the women.” Full story here
I think this is so awesome. You know, we survivor-bloggers should be forming some sort of Survivor Sisters thing too. I remember once reading about a group of vigilante women who used to light candles and just stand outside of a rapist’s home all night long. They weren’t infringing on anyone’s rights, but they were certainly letting the rapist know they were watching him.