Raju Vernekar
As we are set to celebrate the “International Women’s Day” on 8 March, with a theme of #BalanceforBetter, a call-to-action for driving gender balance across the world, a gender equality is still a distant dream in India.
With the exception of a few high achievers, women are still underrepresented in professional and public life. The discrimination against the girl child begins from the birth itself and boys are preferred over girls and despite laws, a female infanticide is a common practice in India. The ordeal that an Indian girl faces at birth is only the beginning of a lifelong struggle to be seen and heard.
Despite the presence of The “Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technologies Act” and various health programmes like “Janani Suraksha Yojana” and “National Rural Health Mission (NHRM)”, our country has a skewed sex ratio. At present it is 943 women per 1000 men.
Crime against women
The crime against women go unabated. The National Crime Records Bureau statistics show an 83 % increase in crimes against women, with as many as 39 cases reported every hour across the country. In the last few years, (32.6%) cases were reported under ‘cruelty by husband or his relatives”. They were followed by ‘assault on woman with intent to outrage her modesty’ (25%), ‘kidnapping and abduction of woman’ (19%) and ‘rape’ (11.5%). The highest number of rapes were reported from Madhya Pradesh (4,882), Uttar Pradesh (4,816) and Maharashtra (4,189). Delhi recorded a 3.03% increase in the number of rapes compared to the number of cases in 2017.
Surprisingly of late, even juveniles figure in the list of accused involved in the incidents of rape, making one to ponder whether this is because of glorification of crime in some of the films or a change in mind set in general.
The Government has already introduced a “Criminal Ordinance” that allows death penalty as punishment for those convicted of raping children below 12 years. In case of rape of a girl under 16 years, minimum punishment is 10 years to 20 years, extendable to imprisonment for rest of life. In case of rape of a girl under 12 years, the minimum punishment is that of 20 years ‘ imprisonment, which can be increased to imprisonment for life or death penalty. Besides the Central government has also introduced Section 376E of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), to give death penalty to the accused involved in rape.
Harassment at workplaces
While the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 is already in place, the recent “Me Too” movement, which received an over whelming response, brought to the fore the harassment faced by women at work places. Section 26 of the Act prescribes penalties for non-compliance and includes a monetary fine of up to Rs. 50,000, amongst other penalties. The penalty may extend to Rs 25 lakh and imprisonment for every officer of the company who is in default for a term which may extend to three years or with fine in the range of Rs 50,000, and Rs 500,000. With “Me Too” the police appear to be prompt in registering complaints, at least some of the cities including Mumbai.
Yet, sexual crimes unfold in a social universe that is neither compassionate nor just. The incidents of rape of dalit and women of other subaltern castes continue to occur in some parts of the country or other.
National Sex Offenders Registry
The Centre has also already rolled out a National Sex Offenders Registry (NSOR), under the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), which is expected to be a comprehensive database of sex offenders and will include their names, addresses, photographs etc. With this move, India has joined the league of other countries, such as South Africa, Ireland, United Kingdom, United States of America, Canada, New Zealand, and Trinidad and Tobago, that maintain sex offenders’ registries as a part of their criminal justice system.
Patriarchy
However deep-rooted patriarchate society, continues to affect women’s empowerment. Of late the women are holding important jobs with 42 percent of them earning equal to their husbands, but they still remain subservient to the husbands and the recent Family Health Survey reveals that only one fifth of working women have the power to take important decisions in the family.
Working women
While the male literacy rate is 81.3 per cent, the female literacy rate is at 60.6 per cent. Although some women are doing well, women’s participation in the work force is low at 26 per cent compared to other BRICS(an association of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries, due to all kinds of barriers that women face if they want to work.
Menstrual Hygiene
Of late with wide discussion about “menstrual hygiene” some of the schools have began free distribution of sanitary pads and have installed napkin vending machines (mostly in cities and towns). This can prevent the girls being withdrawn from schools at puberty if the school is far away.
Widows
The condition of widows is the worst, since the society still treats them in a despicable manner, especially among Hindus. They are either abandoned by families or sent to “Shelter Homes”, to live a life of penury. A small pension of Rs 350 per month (which was Rs 200 earlier) is granted to them under the Indira Gandhi National Pension Scheme. In most states, they are considered as a bad omen and are excluded being “inauspicious”.
Schemes
The Central Government has several schemes for women upliftment both at State and Central level. They include “Swadhar” (1995), “Swayam Siddha” (2001), “Support to Training and Employment Programme for Women” (STEP-2003), “Sabla Scheme” (2010), “National Mission for Empowerment of Women” (2010) etc. Thus, there is no dearth of laws and schemes for the women empowerment.
Representation in Executive Government
India ranks 148 globally in terms of representation of women in executive government and parliament. The 16th Lok Sabha has 61 women members, the highest in history. Speaker of 16th Lok Sabha is again a woman, Sumitra Mahajan. The present Rajya Sabha has 29 women members. The seven women ministers in the 46-member Council of Ministers have reinforced the new government’s agenda of women empowerment. Six of the 23 Cabinet ministers are women, claiming almost a 25 per cent share. Nirmala Sitharaman (Defence ) and Sushma Swaraj (External Affairs) are holding the key positions. Swaraj is also the first woman after three decades to be a member of the all powerful Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS).
In the meanwhile the “Women’s Reservation Bill” which proposes to reserve 33% of all seats in the Lok Sabha and in all State Legislative Assemblies for women, is still pending. If passed, this Bill will give a significant boost to the position of women in politics.
It has been rightly said by Swami Vivekanand, “The Best thermometer to the progress of nation is its treatment of women”. Women play an important role in determining the destiny of a nation. Thus road map for women empowerment is there but still we have miles to go. Lets hope that in coming years, women empowerment will prove its worth.
(feedback: kbjandial@gmail.com)
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