Promoting Gender Equality in India Ratna M. Sudarshan Director, Institute of Social Studies Trust...

Promoting Gender Equality in India

Ratna M. SudarshanDirector, Institute of Social Studies

TrustNew Delhi

What are the sources of inequality?

Traditional India had seen a woman only as a member of a family or a group- as daughters, wives and mothers- and not as an individual with an identity or right of her own. The radicalism of the Constitution and its deliberate departure from the inherited social system lay in its implicit assumption that every adult woman, whatever her social position or accomplishments, will function as a citizen and as an individual partner in the task of nation building.

• Towards Equality: Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India (GOI 1974) p.7.

Institute of Social Studies Trust

What are the sources of inequality?

‘Achieved’ vs ‘ascribed’ identity• Inherited or ascriptive status – influenced

by norms of seclusion, nature of the conjugal contract, family and kinship norms, traditional inheritance rights.

• Chosen or created status - influenced by education, health status, fertility rate, labour force participation, political participation, legal rights.


What is the equality that we seek?

• ‘Substantive Equality’: Taking into account context and the reality of disadvantage, so that focus shifts away from equality of treatment towards equality in outcome and result.– Care– Household provisioning– Informal, home based, unpaid work; agriculture


Commitment of the State• Constitution• The UN Framework

– Beijing Platform for Action 1995(India Country Reports 5,10 years; annual reporting to Commission on the Status of Women)

Poverty, education and training, health, VAW, armed conflict, economy, power and decision making, institutional mechanisms, human rights, media, environment, girl child

– CEDAW (reporting at regular intervals – reports submitted 2000, 2007)

– MDGs


CEDAW Concluding Comments – (selected comments)(2007)

• Concern over reluctance to review stance of non interference in personal laws. The committee suggests the need to encourage debate within relevant communities so as to modify social and cultural patterns to achieve greater equality.

• Needs more statistical data disaggregated by gender, caste, minority status and ethnicity to monitor the fulfillment of provisions of the convention with respect to STs/SCs/OBCs and minority women.

• Recommends impact assessment of legislative reforms



• Urges government to provide free legal services to poor and marginalized women.

• Create a comprehensive plan to fight violence against women. While the committee appreciates the enactment of the Domestic Violence Act 2005, there is need to put mechanisms in place to ensure effective enforcement.

• Sensitize judiciary, public health professionals and public officials towards all forms of violence against women.

• Asks for sex disaggregated data on domestic violence cases reported to police and other relevant authorities.



• Expand narrow definitions of rape to include marital rape and criminalize child sex abuse

• Suggests inclusion of mass crimes against women perpetrated during communal violence in the proposed Communal Violence Bill 2005.

• Enact legislation to operationalize the constitutional right to education. Asks the state and national governments to strengthen efforts to narrow education gap between men and women and more so for minority and backward communities.

• Meet commitment of allocating 6% of GDP to education



• Ensure rural women benefit from National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005.

• Take proactive steps with credit and financial institutions to empower women financially through micro credit initiatives.

• Create regulation for the functioning of micro credit organizations in consultation with women’s groups.

• Ensure adequate mechanisms and procedures for effective implementation and monitoring of the Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostic Technique 9Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act 2003 and prevent criminalization of women who are pressurized into seeking sex selective abortions.



• Speed up efforts to reserve one third seats in Parliament and state legislatures for women.

• Speedy enactment of Unorganized Sector Workers Social Security Bill 2003

• Study impact of mega projects on tribal and rural women and institute safeguards against displacement.

• Ensure action against child labour and child marriage


Access to economic opportunity


Economic Aspects: Work and Workers 2004-05

54.715.7 Percentage of unorganised non agricultural workers, working from own home

35 hours4 hours Time spent on care and household maintenance per week

72.8 48.9 Percentage of Workers in Agriculture and Allied activities

91.3 84Percentage of Unorganised Sector Workers in Total Workforce

95.9 90.7 Percentage of Unorganised Workers in Total Workforce

Female Male Indicator (NCEUS 2007)


Official Responses seeking to improve women’s economic situation

• Poverty Eradication – reservation or quota for women

• Gender Budgeting to engender programmes and policies

• Micro Credit/SHGs – self employed• Skills Training – self employed• Support Services – child care facilities, crèches at

work places and educational institutions, homes for the aged and the disabled; women-friendly personnel policies

• NREGA – poor households, wage workInstitute of Social Studies Trust

Access to economic opportunity

• To what extent, and under what circumstances, does additional income translate into well being and empowerment?


Laws


Recent Significant Legislation

• Land Rights: Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act 2005, India

• Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005


Political participation


How should we understand women’s ‘empowerment’ in political spaces?

Indicators of such ‘empowerment’:• Representation – idea of a ‘critical mass’• Bringing new issues on to the agenda – the

specificity of women’s experience• Influencing allocations in response to these

issues – tangible impact of women’s presence • Introducing processes and systems that address

care responsibilities and allow more effective participation of women – sensitivity to women’s roles


Approach in India • Affirmative action through reservations (one third of

seats in Panchayati Raj Institutions) • India: reservation is 33.3 per cent, actual representation

is 37 per cent (ranging from 33 in Andhra Pradesh to 54 in Bihar). Women have been elected both in reserved and unreserved constituencies.

• System of rotation – EWR doesn’t have the same reserved seat available at the next election (except in Tamil Nadu where reservation is for 10 years)


Observations from the field

‘Whatever you can rightly say about India, the opposite is also true.’ Joan Robinson

• Frequently observed ‘sarpanch patis’- de facto governance by male members of the family

• but also examples of empowered women leaders

Question: what makes empowered women leaders more likely?


Enabling factors: organising and voice

• Women with experience of being part of a women’s group prior to getting elected to panchayat had the opportunity of– developing qualities of leadership – working in a group – negotiating with men of the village, articulating

needs and issues• Q. – organising is an essential input, but may

not be enough: need solidarity around issue/issues


Constraining factors

• Constraining factors: – limited decentralization of powers – little scope to decide use of funds– established arrangements (often with stated

percentage payments) – • women toe the line, allow sarpanch patis to decide, do

not extend the boundaries of the discourse


Education


Education

• 1951: literacy levels 25% for men and 9% for women

• Constitution envisaged that within ten years universal literacy would have been achieved.

• Objective of incorporating a gender perspective in education policy is to go beyond parity to equality ‘in, within and through’ education.


Year M F

1991 64 39

2001 75 54

2001 (SC) 66.6 41.9

2001 (ST) 59 34.8

Literacy Rates by Sex (1981-2001)

29.76

39.29

53.6756.38

64.13

75.26

43.57

52.21

64.84

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

1981 1991 2001

Census years

In p

er c

en

t

FemaleMalePerson

Source : Census of India

Special Measures

Dropout Rates 2001-02

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls

Classes I-V Classes I-VIII Classes I-X

SCsSTsOverall

Source : Selected Educational Statistics, HRD Ministry, Government of India

The scheme of ‘Special Educational Development Programmes for SC girls belonging to Low Literacy Districts’ introduced in 1996-7 seeks to establish residential schools for girls from SC communities, to encourage first generation learners from low literacy pockets.

Persisting challenges and the way forward


Challenges

• Re-examine development discourse– Improve quality of women’s work force

participation, access to assets and skills– Improve natural resource management, access to

water and energy• Threats to environment and climate change

– Immediate impact and coping strategies


Challenges

• Strengthening support for care responsibilities

– Working with men

– Creating a supportive environment, maternity leave, creches

– Public programmes (eg NREGA) to ensure creche facilities


Way Forward?

• National Initiatives in legislation and policy to be supplemented by adequate resources and programmes for awareness, training of staff, counselling and support

– Focus on implementation, information and awareness

• Building partnerships

– Involve all stakeholders

– Especial focus on involving men


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Promoting Gender Equality in India Ratna M. Sudarshan Director, Institute of Social Studies Trust...

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