NATIONAL POLICY FOR THE EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN
As a follow up action to the commitments made by India during the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing during Sep. 1995, the Department has drafted a National Policy for the Empowerment of Women after nation-wide consultations to enhance the status of women in all walks of life on par with men and actualize the constitutional guarantee of equality without discrimination on grounds of sex.The goal of this Policy is to bring about the advancement, development and empowerment of women. Specifically, the objectives of this Policy include:
a) Creating an environment through positive economic and social policies for full development of women to enable them to realize their full potential;
b) The de-jure and de-facto enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedom by women on equal basis with men in all spheres - political, economic, social, cultural and civil;
c) Equal access to participation and decision making of women in social, political and economic life of the nation;
d) Equal access to women to health care, quality education at all levels, career and vocational guidance, employment, equal remuneration, occupational health and safety, social security and public office etc.;
e) Strengthening legal systems aimed at elimination of all forms of discrimination against women;
f) Changing societal attitudes and community practices by active participation and involvement of both men and women;
g) Mainstreaming a gender perspective in the development process;
h) Elimination of discrimination and all forms of violence against women and the girl child; and
i) Building and strengthening partnerships with civil society, particularly women’s organizations.
Achievements during the XI Five Year Plan
The Eleventh Five Year Plan was aimed at inclusive development. Its vision was that every woman in the country should be able to develop to her full potential and share the benefits of economic growth and prosperity. Towards this end the approach adopted was to empower women and recognize their Agency thereby seeking to make them partners in their own development. This it sought to do by mainstreaming gender in all sectors as well as by undertaking targeted interventions.
The Plan period saw the introduction of many new schemes and programmes targeted at particular groups or aimed at addressing specific issues. These included SABLA, for empowering adolescent girls, IGMSY for supporting poor women during the final stages of their maternity, Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Yojana for women farmers, a scheme for leadership training of Minority women, Ujjawala for combating trafficking and Dhanalakshmi to tackle the issue of declining sex ratio. Existing schemes were also modified to make them more effective and to plug identified gaps. Implementation of Legislations enacted just prior to the XI Plan like the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, and Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 was followed up with the States and a new legislation aimed at providing women a safe working environment, Protection Against Sexual Harassment at the Workplace Bill was introduced in Parliament.
Several other policy decisions were made in the sector of women and children. Major amongst these was the launch of the National Mission for Empowerment of Women (NMEW) on March 8, 2010. The Mission will work for strengthening inter-sectoral convergence at the Central, State, District and lower levels of governance making it possible for women to know about and access all Government schemes and programmes. The National Mission Authority, supporting Committees and the National Resource Centre for Women have been established and have started functioning. The first pilot convergence project was launched in Pali district of Rajasthan in September, 2011 and similar pilots are planned in other States/UTs. The State Governments are also establishing parallel structures at the State level. 16 States/UTs have already established State Mission Authorities and 11 States are in the process of setting up of State Resource Centres for Women. The Mission stands testimony to the commitment of Government to the empowerment of women in the country.
Another, landmark decision on which work has been initiated is the restructuring of the Rashtriya Mahila Kosh into a systemically important Non- Banking Finance Company with an enhanced corpus of Rs 500 crores. The restructured RMK will have a pan-India office network and in its new and expanded form it will be facilitating the financial inclusion of more than 2 lakh women from the disadvantaged sections of society on an annual basis towards the fifth year of its working.
The Eleventh Five Year Plan mentioned Gender Budgeting and Gender Outcome assessment and underlined the importance of Gender Audits of public expenditure, programmes and policies at national, state and district levels. The Plan envisaged the strengthening of the Gender Budget Cells set up in the various Ministries and Departments. Towards this, in March 2007, the Ministry of Finance issued a charter on Gender Budget Cells (GBCs) outlining the composition and functions of the GBCs. While, the charter was an important step towards institutionalising Gender Budgeting within Government, the implementation of the charter remains a challenge.
A scheme on Gender Budgeting was introduced in 2007 with a view to building capacity so that a gender perspective was retained at all levels of the planning, budget formulation and implementation processes. Both Central and State level officers have been trained under this scheme and as a direct consequence of these training efforts, a number of Ministries as well as State Governments have taken GB initiatives.
Inclusion and mainstreaming of women also received special attention under programmes such as the MNREGA, the Right to Free & Compulsory Education, National Rural Health Mission, National Rural Livelihood Mission and National Skill Development Mission. Gender Budgeting initiatives also led to development of new schemes in supposedly gender neutral sectors like Department of Telecommunications and Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
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