Listen to Her shows us a woman (Das herself) confined in her apartment with her family, doing her best to keep up with her office job online, housework and catering to the insistent demands of her husband and son. Suddenly she gets a telephone call – a wrong number – from a desperate woman who is trapped at home with her violent husband. ‘Listen to me, sister,’ pleads the caller, and the two women have a harrowing whispered conversation.
The film ends with the words ‘Whisper. Speak. Shout. Your voice will be heard’ and the numbers of telephone helplines for women at risk.
The film was a ‘spontaneous response’ to the cruel ironies of the lockdown slogan ‘stay home, stay safe’. With the increase in their workload and the worldwide surge in domestic violence during the crisis, many women actually became more vulnerable inside their homes.
I wanted to tell a simple story of a woman overburdened and a woman abused, both, impacting each other. The film encourages women to speak and for us to listen, to report abuse, to increase public awareness of designated helplines.
UNESCO has always believed women’s voices must be heard, and gender equality is a top priority in all its activities. Das received the support of UNESCO and its sister UN agencies UNFPA, UNICEF and UN Women to make and launch her film, which can be viewed on YouTube.
For UNESCO, all forms of discrimination based on gender are violations of human rights, as well as a barrier to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
Priority Gender Equality
