While awareness programmes and outreach programmes are a feasible method to spread a message, the scenario on the field is very different, say women advocates from the city, who attended a session to discuss issues faced by adolescent girls working in textile mills.
"Youngsters have strongly-held misconceptions, which makes it difficult of take across awareness messages. Students are heavily influenced by popular perceptions propagated by cinema and mass media," an advocate said.
Speaking about issues pertaining to adolescent girls workers in textile mills, P Selvi, an advocate at the Madras high court, said women advocates associations should speak to owners of mills and industries and make them aware of laws and legislation. "Women advocates can also take such information to women workers by organising events on the Women's Day and other such occasions," she said.
Amudha, an advocate from the city, said awareness camps often fail to make an impact due to the strongly-held misconceptions of the target group. "When lawyers associations here organised awareness programmes in city schools after the Nirbhaya incident, we found a lot of girls holding on to misconceptions about male-female relationship and love. They were heavily influenced by cinema," she said.
Jayanthi, another city-based advocate, agreed to this. "After the Nirbhaya incident, I organised a self-defence and awareness camp for around 500 college students. The students took it in a very casual manner and were not serious about it. Only those who were affected by such incidents lent an ear to what we had to say," she said.
