Women in distress can step in here, not just for free counselling

As a nine-year-old, Sharifa had a dream. Born in an orthodox family, she dreamt that she was cycling in her village, Manaparai, near Pudukottai. "Such was the thrill that even flying abroad has not given me the same high," Sharifa recalls sitting in her modest network, steps, a "women's development organisation" that today has helped many in Pudukottai district do more than just dream of cycling. The steps Women's Centre is a door any woman can knock whenever she wants. "There are working women's hostels and homes for the destitute. But there is no place for a woman stranded at a bus-stop after 8 pm. You ask for a hotel room and they think you are a characterless woman. I wanted to create a space for women where they can just be themselves."

This conviction led Sharifa to start steps in a rented premises in 1989. Women in distress can step in here for help. And they have. Sharifa and her team have handled more than 1,000 individual cases in the last 12 years—cases of dowry harassment, inter-caste/community love marriages, unwed mothers, divorces, sexual slavery, physical and psychological torture, marital disputes, desertions, organising Dalit and Muslim women. Besides, steps has stepped in in cases where huge groups of women have been affected, "the latest being helping women vendors at the Pudukottai bus stand who were asked to stop selling their stuff." steps is not just about providing free counselling to women in crises. Sharifa believes that all women have a right to a certain space where they can sit in peace, relax and think. "Without providing such a space, how can we think of women's liberation?" asks Sharifa.

Born last in a family of ten, Sharifa may not have cycled in her village, but she did come a long way to Aligarh Muslim University to pursue a diploma in management. It was an All-India Women's Conference in Patna in 1989 that opened her eyes to a whole new world—"I went there as a translator but I was amazed to hear women opening up about patriarchy, everyday physical and sexual violence. I realised my story was no different." Sharifa says her mother, Halima Bi, might not have been an "out feminist", but she had it in her—unsupported by her "useless husband", Halima brought up all her 10 children on her own. Today, it is Sharifa, unmarried at 37, who takes care of her mother and a sister with two children who too came almost as a victim to steps.

A collector who was sympathetic to Sharifa's struggle allotted six cents of land to steps in 1991. "But it took five years to raise our own building. Several groups opposed us. Men used to defecate at the construction site and even throw used condoms. They wanted to prove that a women's group like steps only encouraged prostitution," says Sharifa, who even pitched in as a labourer to complete the building.

steps was awarded the inaugural Durgabai Deshmukh award instituted by the Social Welfare Board in 1999. Sharifa collected the award from Prime Minister Vajpayee on the International Women's Day, but back home "not even the local collector acknowledged this". With the one lakh award money she received, Sharifa raised the first floor of steps.

She has bigger plans now. To start with, Sharifa wants to build a full-fledged hostel for travelling single women who can use the shelter for nominal rates. "I want to make steps self-sufficient," says Sharifa, who has set up Saaya in neighbouring Tiruchi to specifically help Muslim women. "I was working for a decade on just women's issues. But I felt nobody was addressing the specific problems of Muslim women. Hence Saaya."

Sharifa recently paid a price for her Muslim name. She was promised an interim grant of $12,000 from a Washington women's centre, but post-wtc, she received a blunt note saying in view of too many applications she was not considered. But Sharifa is not disheartened because she still has faith in the essential goodness of human beings. steps can be contacted at: Sharifa, steps Women's Development Organisation, Near Union Office, Pudukottai—622001, Phone: 04322-20583/cell: 98424-20583, e-mail: sherifasteps@yahoo.com