On Saturday, 19th January 2008, Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF) will conduct a protest demanding the Men Welfare ministry. People from all walks of life including Software engineers, doctors, drivers and plumbers will participate in this protest. Azim Premji, CEO of Wipro, who faced a false and frivolous Domestic violence case by wife of an employee of Wipro, has also been invited to the protest.

The location of the Protest will be in front of Gandhi Statue, on MG Road, Bangalore and the time of the protest is from 10:30am till 1:00pm. About 150 to 200 men, women, elders and children are expected to participate in the protest. There are 30 to 40 men and women traveling from Hyderabad, Chennai and other parts of South India to participate in this protest. Most of them are scientists, NRIs, Software Engineers, Doctors and Business persons. The protests will be held every month in different parts of India till Indian parliament amends t he laws to "stop legal terrorism" and makes all the laws "gender neutral".

Today, men are facing a lot of issues due to lack of protection to men according to law from extortion, dowry harassment (of men), domestic violence and economic abuse. According to National Crime Records Bureau, in every 10 minutes a husband is committing suicide in India.

The current Domestic Violence act was drafted by lawyers, whose expertise on 1st principle of law making and justice is questionable. Some of their key members are unable to understand that words police, bail, jail, bonds have no place in DV act which is supposed to be civil law. The current Domestic violence Act suffers from too many maladies including the fact that the definition is wrong, procedures are wrong and the relief is wrong. There have been many instances wherein violent and abusive women have got their way. The law is used grab the property and wealth created by Elderly People out of their retirement funds. T his has removed t he peaceful residency rights of elderly people and unleashed "legal violence" on elderly. The Supreme Court of India has termed the DV Act as a badly drafted law, which can lead to "social chaos".

That the Dowry law and Section 498a of IPC are being heavily misused is no longer in question. The judges have spoken. Justice Malimath Committee has already recommended the law to be made bailable. Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice Seema of Supreme Court have already spoken in anguish about it and termed t he misuse of Section 498a as "legal Terrorism". They also urged t he legislature/parliament to make provisions to stop the misuse of the Law. The Indian parliament has ignored this judgment for last 2 years.

The judgments denouncing the legal terrorism are too numerous. Considering families as "guilty till proven innocent" is against the cardinal principles of natural justice.

The impact of the legal terrorism is enormous:

• In every 6 minutes an innocent is arrested.

• In every 30 minutes an innocent woman is arrested.

• In every 2 hours an innocent elderly is arrested

• In every day an innocent child is arrested

Source: National Crime Records Bureau 2005

Thousands of men are forcibly separated from own their children if there are any differences between the couple. Thousands of children today are living as fatherless children as they are forcibly disconnected from their fathers. As a result, the suicide rate of Indian Men is increasing at a rapid rate. At present, about 73000 men commit suicide out of 113,000 over all suicides in India. The Married men's suicide is extremely high (52483 suicides) and at least 24000 married men commit suicide due to abuse by wives, which is three times the so called dowry deaths ( source : National Crime Bureau )

Today, men are often portrayed negatively by citing exaggerated statistics on dowry or domestic violence. For example, every un-natural or accident death is classified as "dowry death" and this statistics is used to blow up the "dowry death" data by several times. In Karnataka per year conviction of "dowry deaths" is at most 30 (refer Times of India Article). Even these deaths are mostly spousal murders with no dowry angle involved.

The contribution and sacrifices that men make to society with commitment and shear hard work are often neglected. Slapping Men by women is considered a fashion and is encouraged in TV commercials, TV Serials and in Movies, where as if a man slaps a woman then it is considered as worst form of domestic assault and a hue and cry is raised. It has become a fashion to abuse men and to portray them in bad light.

Save Indian Family Foundation also demands a commission for Men Issues. When there can be commissions and ministries for women, children, minorities and even Animals, why there cannot be a Men's W elf are Ministry and National Commission for Men (NCM)? After all, it is the Men who work in most hazardous and difficult environments like working as a Coolie, a rickshaw puller, a fire fighter or garbage cleaner. In every 10 minutes a married man commits suicide in India. Life expectancy of men is lesser than women.

Demands by Save Indian Family Foundation:

1. Right to protection of Men from abuse and dowry harassment by Indian Legal System.
2. Dowry, Extortion and Domestic Violence Laws must be made gender neutral.
3. Redraft the Domestic violence law.
4. Presumptive Joint Child Custody of children.
5. Punishment to unscrupulous women, who threaten, abuse and file false dowry harassment cases.
6. All laws & bills including the newly placed harassment bills to be made gender neutral. The words men and women need t o be replaced by "persons" and t he words wife and husband need t o be replaced with the word "spouse".
7. Spread awareness of the abuse of men and misuse of laws amongst authorities.
8. Gender neutrality training (as opposed to biased gender sensitivity training) to all authorities, police and judiciary.
9. Include help booths to help abused men to be run by NGOs in the Police Commissioner's offices.

This necessitates that Government appoint a Men's Welfare Ministry immediately to look into the issues holistically and provide relief on all of to all citizens irrespective of gender.

On 19th January, SIFF NGO activists from various cities of India will conduct a massive protest in front of Gandhi Statue, on MG Road Bangalore.