Brief: Draft National Policy for Women 2016

prepared by Ragamalika Karthikeyan

Draft released by the Ministry of Women and Child Development on May 18, 2016 hopes to replace the 2001 National Policy for the Empowerment of Women.

Vision:

A society in which, women attain their full potential and are able to participate as equal partners in all spheres of life and influence the process of social change.

Mission:

To create an effective framework to enable the process of developing policies, programmes and practices which will ensure equal rights and opportunities for women in the family, community, workplace and in governance.

Overview:

• The policy focuses on health, education, employment and visibility of women.
• Although the larger focus is on maternal health and nutrition, policy also mentions mental health, geriatric care.
• Policy focus on migrant women labourers, especially domestic workers. New legislation promised for domestic workers.
• Large focus on skill development and vocational training of women and girls.
• Pay parity, institutional mechanisms to encourage gender equity in familial responsibilities mentioned.
• Focus also on increasing land ownership of women. Measures to reduce stamp duties, increase awareness about land rights among women.
• Emphasis on collecting gender disaggregated data across sectors.
• ‘Emerging issues’ like menstrual hygiene, cyber safety touched upon.
• 50% reservation for women in local bodies, 33% reservation in assemblies, Parliament, promised.
• The policy promises to strengthen public transport, sanitation infrastructure to help women in many ways.
• Institutional response mechanisms, better implementation of existing legislation promised to tackle violence against women.

Introduction

The draft policy lists out 12 objectives, focusing on the health, education and social and political participation of women and girls. The objectives also talk about tackling violence against women and empowerment of marginalised women. The subjects of these objectives are discussed in seven ‘priority areas’, and some ‘emerging areas’. The document also focuses on strategies for implementing its objectives.

Priority Areas:

• Health, including food security and nutrition

1. Maternal, Sexual and Reproductive Health:

• Capacity building of existing systems, like Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) and Anganwadis, in order to improve maternal mortality rates.
• Co-ordinated ‘Referral Transport System’ for safe childbirth and emergency obstetric care in all areas, especially difficult, remote and isolated areas, and in places affected by natural calamities.
• Focus of sterilisation campaigns to be shifted to men instead of women.
• Special emphasis on sexual and reproductive health needs of adolescents.
• ‘Suitable interventions’ to focus on health needs of menopausal women.
• Healthcare coverage for surrogates during pregnancy, and for post-pregnancy check-ups.

2. Nutrition:

• Focus on nutrition during antenatal and postnatal stages.
• Strategies to address intra-household discrimination on nutrition for girls and women.
• Regular data collection, district-wise, sex-wise, on nutritional deficiency of children.
• Review of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) role in preventing and addressing under-nutrition.
• Strengthen Public Distribution System (PDS) to reach vulnerable women.
• Proposal to have Self Help Groups (SHGs) manage institutions of food/grain banks, to ensure uninterrupted supply of food, even during disasters.

3. General/Other:

• Systemic approach to provide mental health screening, care and treatment to vulnerable women.
• Focus on communicable and noncommunicable diseases, formulation of appropriate strategies and interventions to address them.
• Strengthening of geriatric services, including preventive, curative and rehabilitative health care, to help women over 60.
• Expansion of Govt health insurance schemes, and linking them to existing schemes benefitting women, like Integrated Child Development Services, Janani Suraksha Yojana etc.
• Investment in data infrastructure to get gender based data from public and private institutions, and researchers, to address health reforms.

 

• Education

1. General

• Responsive complaining mechanism in schools and colleges to address discrimination, sexual harassment.
• Gender sensitisation of faculty, and curriculum, content and pedagogies for an understanding of concepts of masculinity, femininity, and gender stereotypes.

2. School Education

• Strengthen pre-school education in Anganwadis in order to:
  • Improve cognitive and communication skills of children.
  • Free older children, especially girls, from child care responsibilities and prevent dropouts.
• Increase enrolment and retention of adolescent girls by providing functional girls’ toilets, recruiting more women as teachers.
• Transport systems to ensure girls don’t drop out because of distance to school.
• Secondary education of girls to focus on skill development and vocational training.
• Monitoring and Evaluation of Govt schools by Mother Groups, Self Help Groups.
• Innovative and accessible education systems for children of migrant labourers, especially in large construction sites, salt pan areas, plantations, and other manufacturing zones.

3. Higher Education

• Inter-sectoral plan of action to encourage enrolment of women in professional/scientific courses, by provision of financial assistance, coaching, hostels, child care etc.
• Partnership with international universities to provide opportunities to women for higher education.
• Online distance education courses in skill development and entrepreneurship.

4. Adult literacy

• Mission mode approach for women’s literacy. Adult literacy to be linked to financial literacy, life skills, education on rights, laws, schemes etc.

• Economy

 

1. Poverty:

• Gender disaggregated surveys on intra-household well being to measure incidence of poverty among women.

2. Raising Visibility

• Gender wage gap to be addressed across all sectors. Focus on pay parity and satisfactory work conditions for women in informal sector.
• Growing informalization and casualization of women’s work / labour to be addressed.
• Reduction in stamp duties for women if assets registered in their name; lowering of income tax slabs for women.
• Gender outcome assessment in all financial inclusion schemes.
• Review of all existing trade agreements and treaties from a gender perspective. Future negotiations to be backed by ‘Gender Trade Impact Assessment’.
• Household surveys to assess gender inequality in household work and unpaid care work. Measures to free women’s time for paid work.
• Caregiver support programmes and family and community counseling to help differently abled women.
• Focus on social security, protection of migrant women labourers, especially domestic workers.

3. Agriculture

• Effective implementation of land rights laws for women; ‘witch hunt’ against women landowners to be addressed.
• Encourage women to hold land in Govt land distribution schemes.
• Gender disaggregated data collection on land ownership.
• Women to be recognised as farmers; agro schemes to target women beneficiaries.
• Self Help Groups, co-operatives to be incentivized to follow sustainable agriculture practices.
• Special package for wives of farmers who committed suicide.

4. Industry, Labour and Employment (Skill Development and Entrepreneurship)

• Pay parity, safe workplaces, social security to facilitate women in formal work environments.
• Focus on skill development and entrepreneurship for women.
• Part-time and flexi-time job creation in the organised sector to attract more women.

5. Service Sector

• Infrastructure like toilets, child care facilities, safe public transport to be strengthened to encourage women to enter service sector.

6. Science and Technology

• Gender-based data collection through mobile phones to inform policy decisions.
• Self Help Groups, Co-operatives, Non-Governmental Organisations to be trained to disseminate technology in rural areas.

 

• Governance and Decision Making

 

• 50% reservation for women in local bodies, 33% in assemblies and Parliament.
• Financial incentives, quotas to increase women’s participation in civil services, judiciary.
• Increase women’s participation in trade unions, political parties etc. Maintain gender disaggregated data to assess progress.
• Train civil servants on gender issues.

 

• Violence Against Women

 

• Life cycle approach to address all forms of violence against women and girls.
• Measures to improve Child Sex Ratio – effective implementation of Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PCPNDT) and creating awareness about the issue.
• Special measures to combat violence against adolescent girls in public and domestic spaces.
• Strengthen existing legislation to prevent trafficking of women and children.
• Sensitise law enforcement, judiciary, panchayats to prevent violence against differently abled girls and women.
• Strengthen alternate dispute redressal systems, like family courts and nari adalat, to address violence against women.
• Create and strengthen linkages between legal service institutions and shelter homes. Create one-stop-centres at shelter homes to provide legal aid to women.
• Advocacy and awareness work with men and boys.
• Gender sensitivity training for law enforcement, judiciary.

 

• Enabling Environment

 

• Focus on providing safe housing for women across socio-economic spectrum, including capacity building of state-run shelter homes for survivors of domestic violence.
• Safe drinking water and sanitation facilities for women at all levels.
• Menstrual health and hygiene education for adolescent girls in schools/colleges.
• Include women in decision making process regarding water conservation.
• Increase number of women in decision making roles with respect to mass media.
• Advocate use of gender sensitive language in media.
• Provide safeguards to protect women on the web.
• Promote sports for women by providing financial incentives, scholarships, coaching.

 

• Environment and Climate Change

 

• All environment policy to incorporate gender concerns.
• Gender specific strategies in disaster management and prevention.
• Environment friendly, sustainable micro-enterprises run by women to be promoted.
• Strengthen role of women in forest governance.

Emerging Issues:

• Child care, dependent care and paid leave for both men and women in organised and unorganised sectors.
• Review of personal and customary laws in accordance with Constitutional provisions.
• Develop measures to prevent cyber fraud, and protect victims, especially women.
• Ensure rights of all parties using in artificial reproductive techniques, including commissioning mothers, surrogates, and children.
• Social security measures to benefit single women, including widows, separated, divorced, never-married and deserted women.

How will these issues be tackled?

• At Central and State level, short-term, medium-term and long-term action plans will be made in the following template:

1. Action points based on each priority area to be achieved during each fiscal year
2. Outcomes with Indicators
3. Responsible Agencies
4. Identification and commitment of resources

• Inter Ministerial Committee headed by Minister of Women and Child Development to operationalise policy. At state level, committee to be headed by Chief Minister.
• Strengthen existing institutions for the protection and empowerment of women, including National Commission for Women, State resource centres under National Mission for Empowerment of Women, Central Social Welfare Board etc.
• Include civil society organisations in formulation, implementation and monitoring of policies for women.
• Review existing legislation and formulate new legislation and/or amendments to benefit women.
• Comprehensive legislation to address the issues of domestic workers.
• Compulsory registration of marriages.
• Emphasis on advocacy efforts to change the mindset of the population, focus on men and boys.
• Promote skill development opportunities for women.
• Strengthen convergence at all levels to ensure village co-ordinators can reach out to women effectively on all Govt schemes.
• Collect gender disaggregated data for all policies and schemes; find new ways of collecting gender-based data to know the real state of women in India.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development invites feedback on the draft by June 20, 2016.