Gender Policy

Gender Policy – Gaps between intention and action in India B R Siwal Deputy Director NIPCCD, NEW DELHI Emal:[email protected]

The Constitution of India not only provide equality to women but also empower state to adopt measures of positive discrimination in favour of women for neutralising the cumulative socio-economic, educational and political disadvantaged faced by them. To uphold the constitutional mandate, the state has enacted various legislative measures intend to ensure equal rights, to counter social discrimination and various forms of violence and atrocities and to provide support services within the broad goals laid down by the Five Year Plans, Government also formulated women related policies like National Policy on Education, National Health Policy, National Population Policy, National Nutrition Policy. India has ratified various international conventions and human rights instruments commuting to secure equal rights of women. Key among there is ratification of the Convention of Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The convention promotes the substantive model of equality: - equality of opportunity, equality of access and equality of rights. Besides the CEDAW several other instruments have been ratified notably the Convention on the Rights of Child, Convention on Civil and Political Rights, Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. India has also endorsed the Mexico Plan of Action Nairobi forward looking strategies, Beijing Platform for Action. To achieve the objective of equality the Government has indicated many welfare and development programmes in its Five Year Plans. It also created various institutions e.g. National Commission for Women. Recently Government also adopted National Policy for the Empowerment of Women (2001) with goal to bring about the advancement, development and empowerment of women. The policy give prescriptions for positive socio-economic policies, equal access to participate in decision making, equal access to health, education, employment, strengthening the legal system, mainstreaming gender perspective in the development etc. Inspite of Constitutional provisions, legal safeguards, ratification of various united conventions, policies, platform of action, plan programmes, policies and planned programmes the desired results for gender equality has not been achieved. There is widespread gaps between government intentions and actions in all the spheres.

Institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women Commitment • • •

Create or strengthen national machineries and other governmental bodies. Integrate gender perspectives in legislation, public policies, programmes and projects. Generate and disseminate gender-disaggregated data and information for planning and evaluation.

Gaps A lack of adequate financial and human resources is the main obstacle confronting national machineries, compounded by a lack of understanding of gender equality and of gender mainstreaming, prevailing gender stereotypes and discriminatory attitudes, competing government priorities and insufficient links to civil society. The Department of Women and Child Development has proposed to set up National Resource Centre for Women. This intention of the Government has been reflected in past ten annual reports of the Department. In spite of Government commitment on various platforms so far no progress has been made. Similarly the Government proposes to appoint Commissioner for Women’s Rights which is still pending for action. Many schemes in the Department of Women and Child Development and Rural Area Employment have been initiated. No proper evaluation have been done about their impact on women’s line. The only achievement is change in the names of schemes such as Indira Mahila Yojana, Integrated Women’s Empowerment Project, Swayam Sidha Swashakti etc. The Balika Samriddhi Yojana, lack clear perspective and non-strata in many states. The State Women Development Corporations in many states face resource crunch and many of their units have been closed down. The promises enshrined in the Indian Constitution and the vision of women’s full emancipation will not be realized unless we gear ourselves once again to intervene more forcefully in the polity and public policy. By public policy we do not mean only policy documents actually released from time to time by the government in power, but actions by public agencies in all sectors of life to promote gender equality and gender justice. The women’s movement in the country has been instrumental in bringing about improvements in the rights of women; in enforcing rights already granted to them; in calling attention to the serious lacuna in many legal provisions and procedures; in monitoring the actual status of women in several sectors through research and data; in mobilizing women’s groups in campaigns and protests; in organizing support and help for many sections of women for employment, income, health, education, legal help, etc.; in generating a resurgence of women’s creative activity; and in forming alternative organizational innovations… the list

is endless. Yet at the end of it all, the record of progress is patchy at best and dismal at worst going by the human development report on gender indices for India. Quite apart from the nitty-gritty of incentives and structural reforms, it will be interesting to see how the government’s own decade-long experience of making reforms work in other sectors informs this process. For instance, it should be clear now that the provision of credit or even offering special subsidies and schemes for deprived groups will make little difference in the absence of institutional changes which in turn cannot be implemented unless they are grounded in the local social and political matrix. In other words, it is not enough to ensure, say, credit adequacy, but also that access to it and its benefits is spread widely enough to contribute to increasing the overall productivity of the sector and the well-being of the people engaged in it. The fact that women form a critical component of the labour force in agriculture is well known. The latest census lends further evidence of this, with a sharp rise in the female work participation rates in the rural areas from 22.3 per cent in 1991 to 25.7 per cent in 2001. And even this, it is clear, does not reflect the real extent of women’s labour. Moreover, there is a sufficient literature on and estimates of the substantial numbers of women-headed households, a large proportion of which are not even recognised as such. Also, it has been clear that none of the programmes – whether it is credit access or extension schemes for technology dissemination – have especially benefited women. In fact there are enough indicators that overall, the structural, institutional and organisational changes under way push women farther to the fringes of the formal economy. Studies of green revolution economies have shown that the introduction of technology which makes work easier in jobs traditionally considered the woman’s domain inevitably pushes women out of those jobs. At another level, there is growing evidence from several countries that the opening up of international trade in commodities and farm products tends to marginalize women in the formal production system. This in turn drastically and negatively affects the families’ food security. Partly this is because rising wage rates are captured by men and partly because current patterns of women’s employment fail to gain accommodation and women move from formal to informal, from wage worker to casual worker, depending on domestic and family compulsions. Given this, changes directed at productive efficiency as measured at the point out output may will act to push out workers who do not have the social, hierarchical or political pull to force the system to accommodate flexibilities of employment patterns. While this is true in any sector, in agriculture it will be particularly telling and will in the long run affect even narrow economic notions of productivity and efficiency. Food Security •

Despite the fact that poverty in India is largely concentrated in the rural sector (three fourths of the poor live in rural areas and female headed households register

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poverty levels that are far higher than the average), little attention has been paid to agriculture. The shift towards agricultural exports and away from food crops to cash crops is a serious threat to food security. Rising food prices affect both the rural and urban poor who basically procure their food supply through the Public Distribution System (PDS).

In any case, institutional change brought about for limited purposes often influences other changes. For instance, self-help groups set up mainly as micro-credit enterprises often with linkages to institutions such as NABARD to expand credit flows to the sector have been found to promote political mobilisation among women. However, in the absence of a gender perspective, extension service schemes for ‘diversification and modernisation of agricultural practices’ have not evidently been linked to credit operations. Women and the environment Commitment • • •

Involve women actively in environment decision-making at all levels. Integrate gender concerns and perspectives in policies and programmes for sustainable development. Strengthen or establish mechanisms at the national, regional and international levels to assess the impact of development and environmental policies on women.

Gaps There is a lack of public awareness about environmental issues and the benefits of gender equality for promoting environmental protection. Environmental policies and programmes lack a gender perspective and fail to account for women’s roles and contributions to environmental sustainability. The low presence of women in the formulation and execution of environmental policy and their under-representation in decision-making bodies are aggravating factors. Violence against women Commitment • • •

Gaps

Take integrated measures to prevent and eliminate violence against women. Study the causes and consequences of violence against women and the effectiveness of preventive measures. Eliminate trafficking in women and assist victims due to prostitution and trafficking.

A lack of understanding of the root causes of violence against women and inadequate data on the various forms of violence hinders efforts. Socio-cultural attitudes and values reinforce women’s subordinate place in society. Although improving, the response of legal officials, especially criminal justice officials, is weak in many countries, while prevention strategies remain fragmented and reactive. Globalisation and Women’s Rights •

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The shift in thinking from development aid to market forces promoted by the World Bank and the IMF under the current trend of neo-liberal economics has brought in its wake a series of problems which include budget cuts, downsized operations, the shutting down of operations by multilateral and bilateral agencies. Globalization has meant a retreat by the State. Women are now forced to work in exploitative conditions where they do not have many of the rights and privileges they were able to claim earlier under the available labour laws.

The mounting violence against women is another alarming signal that the elimination of the subordinate status of women is not as easily overcome as we thought, and that we underestimated the strength of patriarchy and casts politics. Public policy and its implementation had made many efforts in may directions but is weakening visibly today. The Committee on the Status of Women made a clarion call to equality; the call is lost in the new slogan of ‘empowerment’, a vaguer concept, hard to measure. Under it, any kind of action for women becomes empowerment. In the name of participation, many responsibilities are added without any reduction in the basic set of deprivations or work burdens; employment and education become tools for family welfare rather than women’s source of freedom; birth control is manipulation for population control rather than true release from reproductive burdens. More than that, the rhetoric of empowerment can evade the contingent clause that the oppressors when clearly identified should be brought to book. Our judges and lawyers, the police and the entire criminal justice system in the majority of cases fail to give justice to women victims, and the offenders area acquitted most of the time. Throughout the 1980s, women’s groups kept addressing the state in the sincere belief that only through public policy can the status of women be improved. Changing the status of women within the family and community by directly addressing gender disparity and power imbalance was not easy; the threat to established structures would provoke too prompt a backlash. Public policy and the weight of authority the government has, they hoped, would work in women’s favour and by building support through better programms addressed directly to women, women could be strengthened to fight against discrimination at home. Perhaps this was too optimistic a view; perhaps it was subject to the vicissitudes of changes in government as later events showed. Nevertheless, these interventions did have some impact. The class position of the leaders of the women’s movement made access to government officials easier.

In several ways, what little was offered through public programmes was sourced by women’s collectives, assisted and supported by women NGOs, thereby giving a voice to grassroots women. That the gap between acceptance of women’s needs and recommendations and actual policy and programmes remained unbridgeable is not solely the fault of wrong strategy by the women’s movement. No political party really pushed women’s issues. The political milieu was strengthening the hands of those who were pushing for nation-building, and fundamentalism was rearing its head. In this scenario, women’s attempts to shift the direction of policy remained ineffective notwithstanding the sops that were offered. The various programmes remained disconnected from each other and there was no overall coherence. Given the widening gap in access to social security both between classes and gender, this is of particular importance, but the policy under the forms is to reduce subsidies and government expenditure regardless of whom it affects most. But for low yield, low infrastructure investment in agriculture outside the well-endowed sectors, bad storage, etc., India has the biggest potential to become the world’s food basket because we have a greater proportion of our land mass as arable land and more sunshine than the advanced countries. A shortsighted export policy of food-grains may not help us achieve this status. Food security is of prime concern to women in poorer households; so is employment. Women and economy Commitment • • • • • •

Promote women’s economic rights and independence, including access to employment, appropriate working conditions and control over economic resources. Facilitate women’s equal access to resources, employment, markets and trade. Provide business services, training and access to markets, information and technology, particularly to low-income women. Strengthen women’s economic capacity and commercial networks. Eliminate occupational segregation and all forms of employment discrimination. Promote harmonization of work and family responsibilities for women.

Gaps Benefits of the growing global economy have been unevenly distributed, creating wider economic disparities, unsafe work environments and persistent gender inequality in the informal economy and rural sector. Women with comparable skills to men lag behind men in income and career mobility in the formal sector.

There has been no feminization of labour as argued by some. Out of 19 industries studied, female labour remained stagnant in 10, decreased in two and increased only in

seven. The increase in absolute numbers relative to male labour was small. Hindustan Level decentralized so that from 600 women it once employed, it now has only three. Much of the female labour has entered into traditional female occupations. Most significantly, female labour has become increasingly casual/temporary/insecure with poor rewards. Even the organized sector has resorted to such strategies to turn skilled female labour into casual labour. Lacking autonomy and facing political interference, the public sector became inefficient and overstaffed. Reforms were definitely called for to improve the performance of the economy, but under the Structural Adjustment Programme instituted by the World Bank and IMF, the unevenness of development accentuated further under a suddenly unleashed market economy. Given the vulnerability of the poorer sections and women, their situation has worsened. There was faster economic growth but it did not lead to more secure employment and some recent studies have shown that growth did not result in any further reduction of poverty either. Much has been written about the adverse gender impact of these policies. Poverty has multiple and complex causes and the expectation that economic growth would increase income and employment may not be fulfilled, for it would depend on whether the new developments promote labour-intensive technologies or capital-intensive technologies. Large industries opt for capital-intensive production to become ‘competitive.’ The assumption that all that is necessary is investment in human capital – education and health – is also not valid. Poverty is primarily lack of productive assets and unless physical capital and productive assets are generated by appropriate policies, and unless there is redistribution, the well-being of the majority is unlikely to be taken care of. For example, land redistribution will serve several goals – data suggest that small landholdings have higher income per hectare and have an incentive to reduce birth rate. In this context, public expenditure for infrastructure development becomes critical. Given the government’s withdrawal in this area, and given the gender skewness, ‘women’s development’ will take a back seat. On the other hand, there is the belief that the rich much be paid more and they must not be taxed to induce them to work, while the workers can be retrenched under the ‘leaner, meaner’ goal. Women and Poverty Commitment Strategic Objective • • •

Review, adopt and maintain macroeconomic policies and development strategies that address the needs and efforts of women in poverty. Revise laws and administrative practices to ensure women’s equal rights and access to economic resources. Provide women with access to savings and credit mechanisms and institutions.

Gaps Income inequality, unemployment and depending levels of poverty of the most vulnerable groups, especially rural and poor women, contribute to the widening economic gap between men and women. The New Economic Policy was launched in 1991-92 and this led to an era of structural adjustment and economic reform, liberalization and the opening up of the economy of free trade and global capital. The Structural Adjustment policies that followed the post liberalization phase, affected women in particular ways: • •

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The process of globalisation, in particular, has been especially painful to specific groups such as the poor and marginalized women, peasant women and women workers of the unorganised sector. Social sector expenditure and public investment have been slashed. Real per capita spending on the social sector infrastructure covering housing, health and sanitation has fallen sharply. Public capital formation has been drastically cut. A major failure of the New Economic Policy has been the inadequate generation of employment in the country. There has been an absolute reduction in rural non-agricultural employment since 1991, leading to distress among women displaced or marginalized by the agrarian process. In urban centres, declining male employment has led to an increase in casual employment. This makes for insecurity and reduced incomes.

There have been schemes for aiding women in micro-enterprises but these are ad hoc programmes. Some women narrate harrowing stories of how they have to run from pillar to post for micro-credit, which has been hailed as a great achievement. No doubt they represent women’s thrift potential and self-help groups do assist poor women. But if we see the record of nationalized and schedule banks’ credit given to households and individuals, these have diminished in importance over successive years so that rural India and the poor everywhere even today rely heavily on non-bank credit like money lenders with high rates of interest. The earlier priority lending and differential rate of interest have been abandoned by banks in the quest for profits. Government sponsored development programmes like the women’s development project in Rajasthan ran into trouble when women became really assertive. The development policies and programmes initiated by the government for women have been of two kinds: firstly, programmes to integrate women into development and secondly, special development programmes for women. The development model itself which has been manipulated by the dominant class/caste group and has let to the increasing impoverishment of large sections of working people as well as severe ecological crisis.

The Department of Women and Child Development came out with a National Policy for the Empowerment of Women. It is a misnomer to call it a ‘policy.’ The document is disappointing in that it betrays no knowledge of all that has happened on the women’s front in the aftermath of the economic reforms and is a series of ad hoc suggestions made many times before; it suffers from an ideological vacuum and an overload of laudable ‘intentions’ but lacks any kind of vision. The onus is put on women to empower themselves and there is very little by way of policy goals or implementing strategies that will create conditions for gender equality. It has nothing to say on the International Labour Organisation (ILO) convention on home workers not being ratified by India. All in all, ‘women are expected to participate in decision – making, while the issues on which they would like to decide move outside the jurisdiction of these decision – making bodies themselves, not only theoretically but in effect because there are wider processes in the economy and the market’. Not merely that – the present right-wing politics has made it much harder for women to act on a united front. There have been a plethora of schemes for rural employment. The Swaran Jayanti Rozgar Yojana was supposed to help the poor, but little impact on women’s lives. Women as producers in farm forestry are not represented in forest personnel. Women also do not get sufficient information on what they can collect, and get hauled up by forest officials. Fuel substitutes like gobar (bio) gas or solar cookers have not become real alternatives because of their high cost and poor maintenance. Efficient fuel use through smokeless chulhas (stoves) has run into rough weather because of bad planning and design inappropriate to women’s cooking practices. The high health cost to women due to wood smoke continues. The Tata Energy Research Institute (1997) rightly argues that pollution control is not to be measured by ambient air quality, but by its impact on people’s health. Health Regarding health policy, suffice it to say the same battle has been going on to gear the healthcare system to promote women’s well-being and not be obsessed solely with their ‘mother’ role. If this interest in the mother really received adequate attention, we would not have one of the highest figures of maternal mortality and a poor gender development index. The paucity of resources at Primary Health Centre (PHC) level, poor staffing, inadequate referral services, poor nutritional intake for girls and women, irrational drug policies, insensitivity of health personnel to women’s ailments and distress – these are many more maladies the afflict our healthcare system have been highlighted by researches. Among NGOs in rural and urban areas, a large number of them are working to promote preventive community health and bring about greater health awareness among women. It has snags, however, in that what the government should be doing is now taken over by NGOs. As it is privatisation has diminished what little by way of PHC we had. Even poor households in India spend a disproportionate share of their income on health. Public expenditure on health is a meagre 2.5 percent of GDP. If one sees this against the 18

percent subsidies given to the well-to-do industrialists and agriculturists, we can conclude where the priorities lie. Occupational health hazards is an area that has merited very little attention in policy or practice. It is not the size of our population that should worry us, but its poor quality that should really engage us. If proof was needed, there is plenty available historically and in contemporary empirical data that voluntary restriction of family size comes with social development. Women and health Commitment •

Increase women’s access throughout the life cycle to appropriate, affordable and quality health care, information and related services. Strengthen preventive programmes that promote women’s health. Undertake gender-sensitive initiatives that address sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, and sexual and reproductive health issues. Promote research and dissemination information on women’s health. Increase resources and monitor follow-up for women’s health

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Progress was constrained by the absence of a holistic approach to health care for women and girls throughout the life cycle, exacerbated by a lack of gender-sensitive health research and technology, data disaggregated by sex and age, and user-friendly indicators. A shortage of financial and human resources led to inadequate infrastructure and service delivery. • • • •

An alarming rise in incidences of female foeticide or sex determination testing to eliminate the female foetus as a discriminatory choice; preference being given to a male child. Maternal morbidity and mortality in Indian women are among the highest in the world. About 15 per cent of all deaths of women in childbearing age are pregnancyrelated. 30 per cent of female mortality in this age group is due to communicable diseases. There are continuing biases in Government programmes and policies relating to women’s health. Several decades of concerted gender unequal programming has led to some 99 per cent female sterilization as opposed to a merely one per cent of male sterilization. Similar biases show up in the lack of comprehensive, gendersensitive perception on health, inadequate budgets, the lack of adequate health centres or transport in rural areas to provide access for women.

Education and training of women

Commitment • • • • • •

Ensure equal access to education Eradicate illiteracy among women Improve women’s access to vocational training, science and technology, and continuing education. Develop non-discriminatory education and training. Allocate sufficient resources for and monitor the implementation of educational reforms. Promote lifelong education and training for girls and women.

Gaps Efforts to eradicate women’s illiteracy and increase girls’ access to all levels and types of education were constrained by, among other things, a lack of resources to improve educational infrastructure and undertake educational reforms; persisting gender discrimination and bias; and sex-segregated occupational stereotyping in schools and communities. Thus, girl’s and women’s education was accepted as important all along and there were recommendations related to training of more women teachers, curriculum, etc., but there was no appreciation of the fact that the supply of schools and teachers was not enough to induce parents to send girls to school and retain them there. Time and again, factors have been identified which militate against parental desire for girls’ education especially in rural areas: girls are needed to assist the family in their occupation as well as help with housework and childcare; they go away after marriage and the returns from education would be reaped by someone else; sons were important and received priority in terms of family investment. Research has vindicated these as unsullied truths. Despite pronouncements to the contrary, there are many missing steps in the implementation of these lofty ideals and realization of these ideas is far from being achieved, even modestly. The missing steps are: inadequate hostels for girls and those that do exist are of a poor standard; very little is done to gear the positive interventionist role of education so that the educational curriculum is even today dominated by academic thrusts and market-led courses; Women’s Studies centres and cells may be doing good work, but they lack proper leadership and adequate resources. Poor infrastructure and insufficient resources have made their tasks difficult and ineffective. State governments are loath to provide support once the University Grants Commission (UGC) grants run out. In general, there is a lack of broader perspective and imagination, insufficient autonomy and stranglehold of university bureaucracy, tardy and erratic release of funds by the UGC and, to cap it all, a low underfined status for Women’s Studies within the academia. Access is one problem. For even those who do complete schooling, the system has done little to remote gender bias in textbooks, curricular materials, and school practices.

Education, even at higher levels, continues to be problematic for women given a pervasive patrifocal family structure and ideology. A major gap is still found in the narrow discipline concentration among women in higher education. Concern has been expressed in many committees and by women’s groups on the importance of increasing the presence of women in Science and Technology and in professional streams. Education • • • •

Half the Indian population is illiterate. Women make up two thirds of this number with female literacy being lower than male and being most adverse among Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes people. Education is one sector which has faced consistent budgetary cuts. Women constitute the largest group among the adult non-literate population in India. The magnitude of the problem of illiteracy can be gauged from the absolute number of non-literate women. The problem of women’s lack of access to education is exacerbated because of law enrolment and high drop out rates among girls who enter formal schools. Societal attitudes and prejudices, as well as the drawing of girls and women into household work are in large measure responsible for this. The drop out rate is particularly high among women who live in rural areas, and becomes acute among the underprivileged sections.

However, considering that the bulk of technological advances have never addressed women’s work and the enormous drudgery it involves, is one wrong in asking that in the present some of it may be eased? Is it wrong to ask that the larger society share some of the work burden induced by the sexual division of labour through provision of facilities that make parenting easier? Altering the sexual division of labour at home is not easy as it has to take place in individual homes; public action is easier and can exert influence and be effective in creating space for women. True, it is not going to meet the ultimate feminist goal of changing gender relations, but some steps can, if pursued alongwith others, take us nearer that goal. We have always had this tension between asking for recognition of what women do and asking for it to be reduced or abandoned to make room for other selfenhancing activities. Swaminathan objects to the tone of the document, saying it reflects the marginalization of women by designating issues as women’s issues, not peoples’ issues. Women in power and decision-making Commitment • •

Take measures to ensure women’s equal access to and full participation in power structures and decision-making. Increase women’s capacity to participate in decision-making and leadership.

Gaps A gap between de jure and de facto equality has persisted. Traditionally assigned gender roles circumscribe women’s choices in education and careers and compel women to assume the burden for household responsibilities. Initiatives and programmes aimed at women’s increased participation in decision-making are hindered by a lack of human and financial resources for training and advocacy for political careers, and accountability of elected officials for promoting gender equality and women’s participation in public life. • •

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Despite vigorous campaigning by women’s groups, and despite the State’s commitment to increasing women’s political participation, all political parties have been more than reluctant to field women candidates. On an average, the past eleven Lok Sabhas in India have had only 30 or so women MPs (below 6 per cent). In the upper house, the Rajya Sabha, their share has been only marginally better at 9 per cent. The situation in the state assemblies is worse than these two, with the figure standing at an average of 4 per cent in the last half century. Despite the State’s commitment (and that of virtually all political parties) to the Women’s Reservation Bill which promises one third representation to women in parliament, the Bill has yet to be tabled for discussion and while parties have made a commitment on paper, most have done their best to resist the introduction of this Bill in reality.

Caste Prejudice • • •

The status of Dalit women in the country is a cause for shame as it tells a story of unmitigated oppression, prejudice and exploitation of the most dehumanised nature. As a result of this Dalit women are malnourished, overworked, suffer morbidity, and are victimized by a number of forces. They lack access to resources, despite the fact that they form the backbone of the country’s agricultural workforce. Dalit women suffer a triple alienation: of class, of gender and of caste and patriarchy. They suffer widespread social ostracism by being branded as untouchables, which denies them access to natural resources such as drinking water, community land etc.

Human rights of women Commitment • • •

Promote and protect the human rights of women, through the full implementation of all human rights. Ensure equality and non-discrimination under the law and in practice. Achieve legal literacy

Gaps Discriminatory legislation still exists, and family, civil and penal codes are still not fully gender sensitive. Legislative and regulatory gaps persist, perpetuating de jure as well as de facto inequality and discrimination. Women have insufficient access to the law, due to lack of legal literacy and resources, insensitivity and gender bias of low enforcement officials and the judiciary, and the persistence of traditional and stereotypical attitudes. • •

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Notwithstanding the increase in the number of laws, conventions (both national and international) the violation of women’s human rights continues unabated in India. Nodal governmental bodies formed for the protection and monitoring of human rights like the National Human Rights Commission must as a rule (mandatory) include one women member on their commission. The rules governing such appointment need to be reviewed with a view to facilitating more women to qualify for the same: Restrictive rules can prevent the right member from being appointed and thereby reduce the rule of appointment of a woman member to mere ‘tokenism’. Violence of human rights of women of specific groups like the dalit, indigenous (tribal) and minority have taken place and these should be seen and addressed as human rights violations and stringent action taken against the perpetrators. Laws require review and amendment and need to be framed with a view to securing, promoting and enforcing women’s human rights at all levels of public & private spheres.

The enactment of legislation on prevention of domestic violence to women to address the wide-spread problem of domestic violence against women and to create an institution of Protection officers for protection of women from domestic violence is still pending for approval. Similarly the Bill on sexual harassment of women at work place is not introduced as promised and amendments provide for strengthen the National Commission on Women received the same fate. The review of amendments of various legislations are still pending at various stages.

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Women and the media

Commitment • • Gaps

Increase and participation and access of women to expression and decision-making in and through the media and new technologies of communication. Promote a balanced and non-stereotyped portrayal of women in media.

Women are still not employed in sufficient numbers in key decision-making positions to influence media policy. Negative images of women, stereotyped portrayals and pornography have increased in some places, and some journalists remain biased against women. The field of information and communication technologies is based on male norms and Western culture. Development of and access to Internet infrastructure is limited, and depends on political will, cooperative efforts and financial resources.

The girl-child

Commitment • • • • • • • • •

Eliminate all forms of discrimination against the girl-child. Eliminate negative cultural attitudes and practices against girls. Promote and protect the rights of the girl-child and increase awareness of her needs and potential. Eliminate discrimination against girls in education, skills development and training. Eliminate discrimination against girls in health and nutrition. Eliminate the economic exploitation of child labour and protect young girls at work. Eliminate violence against the girl-child. Promote the girl-child’s awareness of and participation in social, economic and political life. Strengthen the role of the family in improving in the status of the girl-child.

Gaps Traditional discriminatory attitudes against women and girls and inadequate awareness of the specific situation of the girl child, where, for example, domestic responsibilities often prevent her from pursuing her education, contributed to a lack of opportunities for girl children to become self-reliant and independent. Programmes were hindered by a lack of financial and human resources, statistical data disaggregated by sex and technical capacity. There were few established national mechanisms to implement policies and programmes for the girl child.