Women are one of the strategic sections of the society and in many ways they are the architect in terms of bringing positive changes as well as setting examples for others through their skills, achievements and power.
This year, the theme of International Women’s day is “Make it Happen” and this is a timely slogan when women are the real anchor of social change and bring about the development of the nation. However, women are even not recognised as equal to men and the social norms and cultural sanctions are a real challenge in this process. Women’s participation in decision making, creation of community assets and control and access of land are still some areas which need a speedy effort.
Education is the most powerful instrument for changing women’s position in the society. Women’s empowerment is today vital for the sustainable development of a nation and for the realization of human rights of every individual; and the strategy required for sustainable development includes economic growth, social development and environmental sustainability. And all this can be achieved only by promoting gender equality, which would focus on identifying and redressing power imbalances giving women more autonomy to manage their own lives and the society at large.
But the menace of violence against women is a global pandemic. It is rooted in a global culture of discrimination which denies women equal rights with men and which legitimizes the appropriation of women's bodies for individual gratification or political ends. Around the world at least one woman in every three has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime.
Every year, violence in the home and in the community devastates the lives of millions of women. Gender-based violence kills and disables as many women between the ages of 15 and 44 as cancer, and its toll on women's health surpasses that of traffic accidents and malaria if both combined. This violence against women is a human right violation and is rampant in all corners of the world. Women's subjugation to men is pervasive in the political, civil, social, cultural, and economic spheres of many countries.
Taking stock of all these issues, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) constituted eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG) for ensuring equity and peace across the world. The third MDG is directly related to the empowerment of women in India. The MDGs are agreed-upon goals to reduce certain indicators of disparity across the world by the year 2015. Article 14 of the Constitution accords equality for both genders. India has led the world in ratifying UN Conventions and international covenants like the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), 1993 and the Beijing Platform for Action, 1995 which gives women its fundamental freedoms in the political, social, cultural, and civil or any other field.
In order to ensure the process of empowerment for women, several progressive policies and flagship programmes are operational in the national and State level in our country. Recently, the Ministry of Women and Child Development, has launched programmes called "Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao" campaign which would initially be operational in one hundred districts of the country in a bid to encourage birth and education of girls.
The implementation of the Swayamsidha programme by the Ministry is also another integrated scheme for the empowerment of women at a total cost of Rs116.30 crores. This would help in the establishment of women self-help groups which will empower women to have increased access to all kinds of resources that they are denied, in addition to increasing their awareness and skills. This programme will benefit about 9, 30,000 women with the setting up of 53,000 self-help groups, 26,500 village societies and 650 block societies.
When women are empowered, whole families benefit, and these benefits often have ripple effects to future generations through gender mainstreaming. In order to attend to women’s issues, it also requires recognizing that women are a diverse group in the roles they play as well as in characteristics such as age, social status, urban or rural orientation and educational attainment. Although women may have many interests in common, the fabric of their lives and the choices available to them may vary widely. The way in which economic progress is judged in the contemporary world tends to give a much larger role to men’s needs and demands despite all the progress that has been achieved in enhancing the voices of women in the last half-century.
Girls' education is fundamental to gender equality and women's empowerment. Which inculcates women’s sense of self-worth; their right to have and determine choices; access to opportunities and resources; power to control their own lives both within and outside the home and ability to influence the direction of social change to create a more just social and economic order, nationally and internationally. The UNFPA has found that applying culturally sensitive approaches is the first step in advancing women’s rights while respecting different forms of social organization. Women’s empowerment can be promoted through democratic governance, decentralization and civil society participation and by developing women's capacities through training, knowledge-sharing and networking.
The contribution of civil society and NGOs in promoting and ensuring the rights of girls and women is also praiseworthy. The case of NIRVAYA in the recent past has impacted a lot and thereafter focus has been centralised in the policies and programmes towards dignity and ensuring rights of girls and women of our country. International non-profit organization Action Aid has launched programmes like Beti Zindabad which alike Beti Padhao, Beti Bachao is an initiative to promote survival, dignity and gender equality in our country.
Similarly, One Stop Crisis Centres are being operational in many States across the country in collaboration with the local Governments to institutionalise girl’s education and empower the women masses.
In the modern Indian society, women are playing stellar role, even challenging the males in politics. More importantly, their role in society development is stupendous. Indian woman is emerging out of their conventional role, realizing their unlimited potential and have begun to take a major role in all walks of life.
We live in an era of increasing inequalities of wealth and resources and continue to witness a frightening backlash against women's rights gained to date. We believe the groundswell of young feminist activism can revitalise the power and potential of decision-making spaces with radical solutions, strategies, and spirit. The value of International Women’s Day (IWD) is in our ability to integrate these new voices and find the threads that weave us together. This will enable us to strengthen interconnected movements and collectively speak truth to power. We must conclude that ensuring rights of women should be done by implementation of laws in true spirit.
(Dr Das teaches English in Dhenkanal College and can be mailed at Subhashree.das1201@gmail.com)