Hyderabad: “Women’s day celebrations are becoming trivial with each passing year and it has been reduced to a state where rangoli, cooking or beauty pageants are being held to celebrate it,” rued state women’s commission chairperson Tripurana Venkataratnam at a press meet on Thursday.

“March 8 shouldn’t be limited to celebrations. We should talk about women’s rights, gender equality, and lack of implementation of the available laws. We should discuss issues like delay in divorce, workplace harassments, lack of fear in criminals etc, and priorities women’s issues.”

Ms. Tripurana said that the culprits usually go unpunished because of the lack of awareness. “The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) came into being in 2013, but committees are formed only when some incident takes place at the office,” she said. Ms. Tripurana urged the media to create awareness about the rights and laws to help women break the silence.