Women in conflict zones

"I died that day!" said an
inconsolable 30-year-old Naseema after her 15-month-old child became yet another victim of Taliban in Pakistan's tribal areas.
Unable to take her ailing child to hospital because there were no men at home and Taliban had prohibited women from venturing out alone, the helpless woman saw her baby daughter taking her last breath.
Resonating unheard voices of numerous such women living in conflict zones, a collective work of twelve journalists from India, Pakistan and Nepal-- Garrisoned Mind - was yesterday launched here.
"The fear of rape, violence, molestation is a constant companion of these women living in conflict zone. Their own identities are subsumed in the process of state formation and nation-building," Luxmi Murthy, one of the editors of the book, said.

"The title of the book was carefully chosen as Garrisoned Minds - colonisation and militarisation of minds in war zones, where bodies of women are treated as territories to be conquered, marked and claimed by the assailants," she said.

Women and children are most affected in conflict zone. "However, we generally ignore their plight," Shujaat Bukhari, Editor-in-Chief, Rising Kashmir said.
Siddiq Wahid, former vice chancellor of a university in Kashmir, said. "There is a vaccum of knowledge on Kashmir issue."
"Three things that are seemingly present in Kashmir are anger, embarrassment and despair," he said.
"There is an absolute impunity enjoyed by military forces landed in Kashmir, Manipur, Khyber, Balochistan, FATA or in Nepal," alleged associate professor, Centre for Women Development Studies, Seema Kazi.

Garrisoned minds, a publication of Speaking Tiger, gives reportage on the lives of women who faced atrocities in such conflicts.