Responsibility should shift towards MEN instead of blaming WOMEN

FAGUNI VERMA

A chemist by profession and Indian-Muslim by religion, Dr.Sheema Khan is a thriving Human Rights and Women Rights Activist in Canada where she has been living since 1965 with her family. Recently, coming over to India for media interactions about her work and to learn and empower the rights to equality, she emerges as one of the powerful figures in Canada where she heard about and saw a lot of injustices happening to women especially of her sect. 

(Dr. Sheema Khan photographed by Mayank Chadha) 

She expatiates, "A few years back, honor killings became a thing in Canada and innocent girls and women were murdered by their own husband, sons and brother just because of some misunderstood conceptions that we have in our religion. These incidents really shook the whole of the country. Although my family were quite supportive and open minded towards me but the society and especially the people of my community obviously retaliated. According to me, responsibility of women safety should shift towards men." Dr. Khan further adds up, "Of course when you stand up for good, you would face retaliation by some groups but that never led me to back down. I was always vocal about my stand against injustices and that helped me to volunteer and help people across." She is also a writer of the book, 'Of Hockey and Hijab: Reflections of a Canadian Muslim Woman' where she has reflected upon her tryst with the obnoxious world to open up and be liberal in a few columns that she wrote for leading newspapers of Canada. Also, she accepts that had she been in India, she might not have been able to voice out her opinions as in the liberal country of Canada.