Rukmini Rao is the founder of the Gramya Resource Centre for Women that tackles the issues of land rights for women, their right to education, and the prevention of violence against women and girls. About her story she says, “I started working for women's empowerment more than 20 years ago when dowry killings were rampant in northern India. My friends and I set up an organization called Saheli in 1981 to help women facing domestic violence. Saheli, along with other women's groups, helped change many legislations including the law on domestic violence and the law against pornographic display of women. But then I realized that all this helps only middle-class women who can access the law. What about rural women? Rural women are more vulnerable, and they face many more challenges. They have the knowledge to change the world, but most of the work they do is unseen and unpaid. Statistics say that they work 17 hours a day. It is mainly women who are working in agriculture, but most of them are landless labourers. Only about 13 per cent women own land. One of our demands at Gramya Resource Centre for Women is that women should have land titles in their names. So, we are pressing the Government to recognize that women are farmers and to give them access to markets, economic goods, and all the other things that they need as farmers. One way of helping women farmers is to help them organize themselves. With MAKAAM, a forum for women farmers' rights, which has about 200 NGOs, we are helping the women farmers do that and we are also helping them pursue sustainable agriculture, which includes using little water, finding ways to improve soil conditions in an organic way rather than using pesticides and chemical fertilizers, using traditional seed varieties, and so on. … The solutions really are with communities and the people; we should listen to the voice of the people.”

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