This project was created as part of a college assignment at the Srishti Institute of Art Design and Technology.
During this course, we were taken to various NGO’s in the city of Bengaluru and Samara was one of them.
Samara is an organization which deals with issues of sexual minorities. Sexuality minorities include, but are not limited to, hijras, kothis, doubledeckers, jogappas, lesbians, bisexuals, homosexuals, gays, Female-to-male/male-to-female transsexuals and other transgenders.
My aim was to create posters to create awareness about the discrimination faced by these sexual minorities. IPC 377 criminalizes any penetrative sex that does not lead to reproduction, thereby criminalizing sexual expression by homosexuals, bisexuals and transsexuals. Even though this section does not lead often to filing of court cases against sexuality minorities, it becomes a powerful weapon in the hands of police and goondas to harass, abuse, extort and torture sexuality minorities routinely. This law forms the structural basis for the widespread stigma, discrimination, marginalization and prejudice against sexuality minorities in our society. Additionally, our laws do not recognize sex-change. Most rights including right to education , employment, housing economic opportunities, health, mobility, marriage, adoption, ration card, passport etc. are denied to hijras and other transsexuals, as they cannot prove their identities, their birth certificates and their present identities do not match.
Recognizing sex-change and establishing procedures becomes the first step towards getting citizenship rights to transsexuals. My aim, through this initiative is to spread awareness about the equal rights these minorities deserve.
