The day before the Indian’s Women’s Court, the program started with 6 Roundtables with each more than 200 participants. I went to the “Conferences of the Birds”, so I only have a photo report on this Roundtable. But of course there was first the welcome and explaining of vision and structures for everybody together.

Here you find more information about the program and the readings of the Roundtables
And below I copy the text of the Press Note about the Roundtables:

On Monday, July 27, the Court of Women was preceded by a series of six simultaneous roundtable discussions on different aspects of the issue of dowry and related forms of violence. The themes included:
• Reviewing dowry, family and marriage in the context of post colonial societies and growing economic and cultural fundamentalism
• Media reconstruction of violence, identity, representation and autonomy
• Reviewing legislation and alternative ways to justice in the context of responses to dowry and related forms of violence against women
• Globalization and Violence against Women: reviewing government policies in the context of the changing nature of the State
• Femicide: the Role of Science and Technology
• Resistance: Conferences of the Birds

About 900 activists, academics, lawyers, media practitioners and concerned civil society participants participated in the roundtable discussions that sought to understand the changes taking place in institutions like the family, marriage, media and the law in the context of the changes caused by forces of increasing fundamentalism and globalization that is leading to increased violence both within the home and in broader society. A special roundtable on resistance heard voices of anguish and hope through poetry, theatre, story telling, sufi songs and other forms of creative expressions.