On “Want Condoms?” Remark To Schoolgirl, Women Panel Notice To Bihar Officer
The Bihar IAS officer who told a schoolgirl “you’d want condoms too” when she asked the government to make sanitary pads more freely available has been questioned by the National Commission for Women (NCW).
The NCW stated today that the officer, Harjot Kaur Bhamra, Managing Director of the Bihar Women and Child Development Corporation, must respond within seven days. She had claimed yesterday that the information about her comments made at an event on Tuesday was inaccurate and that she had been fighting gender discrimination because she is a woman.
When a member of the audience mockingly questioned the purpose of government programmes, Ms. Bhamra attempted to portray her words as a lesson in independence.”There’s a need to change the thinking,” she told the audience member, and then said to the girls on stage, “You have to decide where you want to see yourself in the future… The government cannot do this for you. Do you want to sit where you are, or on the side I am sitting on?”
Ms. Bhamra threatened to sue the newspaper, Dainik Bhaskar, which first reported her statements after videos of the event went viral and doubts about her behaviour were raised. Even the Press Council of India was pushed to intervene by her.
“I am recognised to be one of the most outspoken champion(s) of women’s rights and empowerment,” she asserted in her statement.
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