Women empowerment:Getting our women ready for tomorrow.

By team

Shrishti.

• Economical causes: Ceremonial expenses during Ear boring,puberty,marriage,pregnancy

• Social Causes: Patriarchal mentality, Social Stereotyping,superstitious beliefs.

Female foeticide and infanticide:

1.Unbalaced sex ratio.

2.Overall increase in sex -ratio but decline in child sex-ratio.

3.Lowest sex-ratio recorded in Punjab and Haryana.

• Economical Impacts: Low % of working women-Decreased per capita income-less access to financial resources-financial seclusion-economical inactiveness

• Social impacts: uneducated mother, uneducated girl child ,under developed nation ,a vicious cycle.

Illiteracy.

1.One out of every three women is illiterate. 2.Early marriages and financial burdens get them out of schools .

3.Preference given to educate men .

• High maternal mortality rate of 212

• Above 50% of pregnant women are anaemic

• 53% of girls are undernourished.

Health condition:

1.Less than 40% of women give birth in proper health facilities,2-3rds of births not attended by trained medical personnel's!!

A Glance through the main Issues faced by the Indian Women

• Social causes: notion of patriarchy, alchoholism,drug abuse.

• Economical causes:unfullfillment of dowry promises.

Domestic violence:

1.70% women are victims of domestic violence.

2.The abuser being ones husband,father,brother and in-laws.

3.The women are hopeless and helpless.

• Social causes: orthodox and superstitious beliefs, uneducated parents,poverty.

• Social effects: under nourished mother and child, uneducated mother, increased mortality rates.

Child marriages:

1.Acc to UNICEF 47% of girls are married by 18 yrs and 18% by 15 yrs.

• Empowerment can only be achieved by ensuring financial independence

• Equal pay for equal work

Occupational inequality:

What the govt can do???

1.Ensuring education ,proper nutrition and sanitation facilities.

2 Increasing awareness abt law,govt policies and incentives, financial assistance.

3.Building entrepreneurship among women.

4.Increased political awareness and participation.

What the law can do???

1.Uniform civil code for all.

2.Timely enforcement of law and express redressal of issues.

3.Awarding exemplary punishment s to wrong –doers.

4.Ensuring proper implementation of govt policies.

5.Increase the accessibility of law for women.

What the citizens can do???

1.Ensure full participation of women in all levels of education ,from receiving it to imparting it.

2.Encouraging women to take decisions.

3.Teaching the women in every household the importance of nutrition and proper sanitation facilities and hygiene.

4.Save women from ill-treatment at home, in office and in public.

Three tier plan:-

Proposed Solutions

• Improvised Education. • Ensuring accessibility of primary

education to all girl children and women.

• Learning self defence be made compulsory at schools.

• Organising workshops to increase leadership and entrepreneurship qualities in women.

• Conduct programs in school that make children aware of the perils outside through active interaction with teachers.

• Conduct monthly meetings were a student is allowed to discuss her problems without fear with her friends and teachers.

• Teachers taking appropriate steps to tackle her students problems discreetly.

• Imparting moral education to all so that good values are inculcated

• Awareness

• Regarding the rights and legal policies for positive discrimination of woman

• All the citizens should be made aware of punishments for the ill-treatment of women .

• Increase the accessibility of law to women of all walks of life through anganvadi and courtyard meetings

• Recruit volunteers with basic education and transfer information through them.

For rural Women

•Organising Self help groups and NGO’s with the help of “Volunteers”.

•Organising small-scale entrepreneurship schemes and providing credit facilities for the same.

•Providing job oriented training for widows.

•Increase the knowledge of women through video conferences with field experts.

•Train middle aged women and midwives as nurses, this will ensure a healthier surrounding.

•Increase access to technology and also train them to use the technology for their betterment through trained volunteers.

For Working Women

•Flexible Transfer policies for working women

•Organising complaint committees in the offices itself. Each complaint committee should at least meet once in a month and a record should be maintained regarding the working of the committee.

•A complaint box should be kept at a region where it can be accessed by all the employees. It should be ensured that no camera is kept near such complaint boxes. These boxes should be cleared and the grievances should be addressed once in a week.

•Safe transportation be provided for night shift workers.

•All women be acquainted with the police officer of the nearest station .

For Urban Women

•As a long term plan, a website should be created through which each citizen can login with his/her id and can opine, complain or discuss about any political matters. A provision to report the Cases of atrocities against women should be implemented.

•As a short term plan, mobile apps should be made available to each women so as to easily reach the helpline number or seek help in case of adversities.

•Entrepreneurship should be encoureaged.Monetary assistance for the same must be made available.

•Implementing a common helpline .

Health

Wealth and Power

Technology.

The areas of focus are:

Lets make them healthy..

• Providing regular health education classes with emphasis on immunisation and family planning at grass root level like anganawadis.

• Giving incentives for institutional deliveries, both to mother and health workers. • Formation of community level peer groups for women. • Facilitate identification and free treatment of malnourished children and mother. • Compulsory health check-ups of pregnant women and proper post-natal care. • To teach the mother elements of child care, nutrition ,personal hygiene and

environmental sanitation. • Iron and folic acid supplementation and medication as needed. • Home visiting by a female health worker • Referral services were necessary. • Post natal care to prevent complication of post partal period. • To provide care for rapid restoration of mother to optimum health. • Stringent rules against sex determination during ultrasound.

Now wealthy..

• Increase property holdings of women, through implementation of laws. This will ensure the women to feel more secure and worthy.

• Teaching them the importance of savings and increase their savings through bank and investments.

• Ensuring greater political participation and awareness. • Increase the number of working women force for greater development of

country through cooperative movements like amul,kudumbasree etc. • Provide nurseries and day cares at work stations. • Women friendly working atmosphere, including breast feeding rooms. • Prevent child marriages by educating the parents of girl children. • Stringent punishment be given for eve-teasers and acid attackers. • Provide subsidies and tax benefits to women entrepreneurs. • Free education for girl children and fees exemptions.

And lastly techie..

• Provide women with a device that would signal a loud siren upon being pressed and attract peoples attention. Thus protecting them from undesired advances from unsavoury males.

• Install an app that will alert the women that the region she is in is dangerous and should be careful.

• Ensure fast and efficient handling of distress calls at all times.

• Train the personnels handling the calls coming on hotline numbers wit sensitivity and empathy.

• Police should reach the scene as fast as possible and come to the aid of the distressed.

• Conduct workshops to enhance entrepreneur skills.

Implementation of the plan

• Involvement of volunteers: A team of ‘Proactive’ volunteers should be organised from the rural level itself. The team must include College Students: Energetic, vibrant, creative, Well versed in using technology, Free during weekends. Social service should be made a compulsory part of the curriculum. Ex-service men and retired employees:: Experienced , Ample free time, Sincere and dedicated Understand the problems better, help the ir counterparts in becoming better citizens. Retired bank employees: Impart valuable information about various credit facilities available. Increase awareness about importance of banks and facilities provided by them such as fixed deposits etc. Determine the eligibility of the applicant for loans and benefits. Teachers , doctors and lawyers: Highly skilled Respected by one and all. Have greater influence.

The quotation is truer than ever before. The need for empowering women has become inevitable.

Studies have shown that women tend to spend their money on education ,nutrition and hygiene.

This shows that the women ensure over all development of everyone in her household.

She touches every life around her and makes it meaningful and fruitful. The roles of daughter , sister,wife,mother and many others she handles effortlessly ensures the upliftment of the society.

Now it is upto us to ensure that she is equipped with all facilities that will help her fulfil her position in life.

She can achieve it only if comes out of her house is educated, treated with respect and equality, given enough confidence and support to make her self reliant and independent .so lets work at providing her with all that she needs to fullfill all her roles with robust health and well informed thoughts , plans and actions.

“you can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its women “

Jawaharlal Nehru.

Thankyou.