AMU celebrates ‘International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women’

Aligarh, November 26:

To stop the horrific pandemic of violence against women, Aligarh Muslim University today joined the protests and celebrations around the world to mark the ‘International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.’

For the celebration, the Centre for Women Studies, AMU today organized poetry, photography and T-Shirt painting competitions in which scores of AMU students from various departments, university schools and other schools participated.While, the theme for poetry and photography competitions was ‘Womanhood’, participants drew paintings on T-Shirts depicting messages on ‘Say no to violence against women.’

Lamenting that the whole of humanity stands to benefit from women’s empowerment, Professor Nighat Ahmad, Director, Centre for Women Studies said that we are fortunate that the AMU administration has been extremely helpful in organizing this event to spread awareness on curbing violence against women.She added that since the constitution guarantees equal rights to women, it is every citizen’s duty to check that women are not harassed and treated as a weaker sex.

“It is our duty as an informed citizenry to aware people from all sections of society about anti-harassment laws and hold perpetrators of harassment against women accountable in order to ensure safety of women,” said Prof Nighat.She further said that girls attending AMU have wonderful opportunities to show case their talent as their teachers and administration are encouraging.While conducting the programme, Ms Yumna Asaf said that today AMU is celebrating ‘womanhood’ to assert that it is unjust to look at women as only ‘victims of violence.’ She added that women are survivors who, for ages have stood up against patriarchy, misogyny, discrimination and oppression.

Lubna Irfan, a M A History student for her poem, ‘On Fire’ received the first prize in the poetry competition. Shiekh Idrees Mujtaba, research scholar from the Department of Sociology won the second prize for his poem, ‘The Great Injust’; Salma Khatoon for her Hindi Poem, ‘Jeene ke liye Jivan’ was placed third. At least two consolation prizes were also given to Alisha Ibkar, research scholar from the Department of English Literature and Anam Beg of MA English Literature.Hiba kakul, Bsc Final Year; Syed Ali Zaidi, M A Mass Communication and Siraj Hussain of M A Public Administration won the first, second and third prizes respectively in the photography competition.Hala Masroor, class 12th, AMU, SSS; Priyanka Joshi, class 11th, AMU, SSS and Saami Siddiqui, Class 11th, AMU, SSS won the first, second and third prizes respectively in the T-shirt painting competition. Umra Aqeel, Bsc Final year; Asma Firoz, Diploma in Calligraphy and Juweiriya Rashid of class 12th, AMU were given consolation prizes in the competition. Assistant Professor, Dr Huma Hasan with Phd scholars Yumna Asaf, Sara Kidwai and Nadeem Khan helped organize the programme.

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