Transcript Document

2nd Joint World Conference on Social Work and Social Development: Action and Impact
Stockholm, 8-12 July, 2012, Sweden
Empowerment of Women in India: A Brief
Review on Actions Taken and Goals Achieved
Bhola Nath Ghosh
Premananda Bharati
Manoranjan Pal
Indian Statistical Institute
203, B.T. Road, Kolkata 700108, India
Objectives
• The present paper briefly discusses
the
programmes that have been taken by
Government of India for empowerment of
women.
• The role of Government of India towards
promoting the empowerment of women is also
discussed.
Some Quotations
“Women empowerment and their full participation on the basis
of equality in all spheres of society including participation in
the decision making process and access to power are
fundamental for the advancement of equality, development
and pace”.
• ---Swami Vivekananda
• “Everyone has right to standard of living adequate for the
health and well being of himself and his family, including food,
clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social
services...........everyone has the right.....to educate...to
work....and to social security”
• Universal declaration of human rights (1948).
What do we mean by
Empowerment of Women?
The word women empowerment essentially
means that the women have the power or
capacity to regulate their day-to-day life in
the social, political and economic activities.
Commitments by Government of India
1. Constitutional Provisions
Women Specific Laws
Laws affecting Women
2. Policies
3. Gender Budgeting
Materials and Methods
The present study is based on Secondary information
collected from:
a. Census reports of India
b. Human development reports
c. UNDP reports
d. Ministry of Child and Women Development
report
e. Wikipedia and different websites
Women related legislations
41 laws covering various spheres.
• Legal Protection
Relevant provisions of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973;
Special provisions under IPC, The Legal Practitioners
(Women) Act, 1923, The Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technique
(Regulation and Prevention of Misuse ) Act, 1994.
• Economic
Factories Act 1948, Minimum Wages Act 1948, Equal
Remuneration Act 1976, The Employees’ State Insurance
Act, 1948, The Plantation Labour Act, 1951, The Bonded
Labour System (Abolition) Act 1976.
Women related legislations (Cont.)
Social
Family Courts Act, 1984, The Indian Succession
Act, 1925, The Medical Termination of
Pregnancy Act 1971, The Child Marriage
Restraint Act, 1929, The Hindu Marriage Act,
1955, The Hindu Succession Act, 1956 (&
amended in 2005), The Indian Divorce Act,
1969
Women related legislations (Cont.)
• Others:
– Immoral Traffic (prevention) Act, 1956
– The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 (730 days up to
18 years of the child).
– The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961
– The commission of Sati (prevention) Act, 1987
– Prevention of women from domestic violence
Act, 2005
National Policy of Government of India for
Empowerment of Women
• Objective – advancement, development and
empowerment, elimination of discrimination
• Achieved through – Judicial legal system,
economic empowerment, social empowerment
and enhancing decision making power of
women, protecting from violence etc.
Institutional Empowering
Mechanisms
• Parliamentary Committee on Empowerment
of Women.
• National Commission for Women.
Seventh Five Year Plan
• 1985- Ministry of Human Resource
Development set up for Women and
Child Development constituted in
Human
Resource
Development
Ministry.
Eighth Five Year Plan
• 1992-97 - for the first time highlighted the
need to ensure a definite flow of funds
from general developmental sectors to
women
Ninth Five Year Plan
30% of funds were sought to be ear-marked in
all women related sectors – inter-sectoral
review and multi-sector approach.
Tenth Five Year Plan

Reinforces commitment to gender budgeting to
establish its gender-differential impact and to
translate gender commitments into budgetary
commitments.
• Aims at initiating immediate action in tying up the
two effective concepts of Women Component Plan
(WCP) and Gender Budgeting
11th Five Year Plan
th
11
In the
five year plan same
policies were followed for the
promotion of girl child in the sphere
of education, health care etc to
bring more gender equality
Action by the Department for Women & Child
Development:
• Adoption of Strategic Framework for Gender
Budgeting
• Ministry of Finance and Planning Commission to
engender the Annual Plan and Budget exercise
for 2005-2006
• Four priority areas
– Food and Nutrition Security & Employment guarantee
– Water and Sanitation
– Adequate Health facilities
– Asset base for women
– Reservation in the PRI
– Joint Patta distribution
Action by the Department for Women &
Child Development (Cont.):
• Capacity Building- Departments in GOI and
State Governments
• Mainstreaming
Gender
ConcernsWatchdog approach
– Interest Subsidy
– Micro Credit
– Health Insurance
– Reservation in the PRI
– Joint Patta distribution
The Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM):
• The Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) measures the relative
empowerment of women and men in political and economic spheres of
activity. It is a composite index having three components.
– The first component represents political participation and decision
making power,
– the second component represents economic participation and
decision making power and
– the last components reflect power over economic resources.
Symbolically we can write
GEM = (PRI + CAMPTI + PCGDPIede)/3.
GEM is the simple average of the three components.
What are needed for “Women’s
Development”?:
• Women as a beneficiary segment
– Need for Gender mainstreaming
• Need to Change Programme formulations
and implementation processes
– More gender friendly
– Optimize Participation of Voluntary Sector
• Gender budgeting – not an end in itself
Rationale of Alternative Strategy:
• Empowerment has to be
–Holistic (Political, Social and
Economic)
–Universal (equal opportunity and
level playing field)
–Participative and Inclusive
Women may be Empowerment through the
following process:
Health
& Nutrition.
Political
Participation
Change male attitude
Education
Asset
Economic Participation
Decision making
Social Mobility.
Social Participation
Gender Analysis of State Budgets:
Decadal trend
Expenditure on Women's Development
YEAR
1993-94
1994-95
1995-96
1996-97
1997-98
1998-99
1999-00
2000-01
2001-02 (RE)
2002-03 (BE)
CENTRE
AMOUNT
%
440.32
643.48
558.22
811.40
893.60
1178.17
1382.04
1550.80
1838.64
1507.59
(Rs in cr.)
STATES
AMOUNT
%
41
48
37
44
43
47
50
48
48
41
643.25
700.17
960.88
1050.35
1169.21
1348.47
1398.29
1709.84
2031.73
2211.57
TOTAL
AMOUNT
59
52
63
56
57
53
50
52
52
59
1083.57
1343.65
1519.09
1861.75
2062.81
2526.64
2780.33
3260.63
3870.37
3719.16
Concluding remark:
• The approach taken by Government of India of
addressing issues related to empowerment of
women from a holistic and micro-point view
acknowledging the cross cutting linkages
between economic, social and political identity
of women presents a new hope. We believe that
the women will be empowered as the men are
and the empowerment of women will bring
down atrocities against women as the women
will have the strength and knowledge to stand up
for their rights.
Thank You all