A group of students from Delhi University's women hostels is planning to launch a protest from February 27 against the hostel rules. The students, under the banner of Women for Equality Committee, demanded the varsity authorities to immediately follow the UGC Guidelines and the Saksham Committee Report and "remove patriarchal and unconstitutional curfew from all women's hostels".
The students quoted UGC regulations dated May 2, 2016 which declared restriction on women's mobility as unjustified for universities to impose.
The said University Grants Commission (UGC), the higher education regulator, has said in notification regarding the prevention, prohibition and redressal of sexual harassment of women employees and students in higher educational institutions that concern for safety of women students must not be cited to impose discriminatory rules for women in the hostels as compared to male students.
"Campus safety policies should not result in securitization such as over monitoring or policing or curtailing the freedom of movement, especially for women students and employees," the notification had said.
The students, belonging to various hostels like Ambedkar Ganguly Students House for Women, North Eastern Students House for Women, Rajeev Gandhi Hostel for Girls, University Hostel for Women and Undergraduate Hostel for Girls, said the curfew timings in various hostels is "all arbitrary and only a ploy to continue surveillance and moral policing".
"How is it that Delhi University prides itself on having a 24x7 library when most women students are locked in by 8pm on an average, effectively barring them from accessing the library? How is it that this University celebrates a near equal ratio of men to women students when many colleges still do not have a hostel for women and do so for men?," a statement from the students said.
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