Empowering women: Two bills on anvil

By Dr Susmita Priyadarshini

Last month Ministry of Women and Child Development  unveiled  two important Bills for public comments. One  is  Draft tiol Policy for Women, 2016 and the other is Draft Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2016.  As women are being trafficked for forced labour and sex work, each of the Bills has bearing on another.   The previous policy for women   was formulated in 2001, but  has rarely been discussed since then. While the endorsement of SDGs is expected to change the course of development  in favour of women, the replacement of previous   policy   by  this new policy  will be another welcome move. The overall objective  of the Bill is to  achieve women’s empowerment  not just through benefits and entitlements  but through creating an ebling environment for  women in which they can enjoy their  rights.  This right- based approach means a clear deviation from earlier policies. It includes reproductive rights as well as rights for single women and widows. It wants to ensure  the rights of surrogate  mothers,  commissioning mothers along with the rights of the children born through surrogacy.    For the first time , the Government   wants to change its role of a provider to an ebler. The attempt  of the Government to become an ebler indicates that the Government really understands  the  meaning of an ebler. Right –based approach is  also seen  in anti-human trafficking bill. It is a step towards  protecting the victims of human trafficking from further abuse. It will prioritize  survivor’s needs  and prevent  victims such as those found in brothel raids from being  arrested and jailed like traffickers. Intertiolly , violence against  women is recognized  as one of the most systematic and widespread human rights violation. Besides being the sigtory to intertiol treaties  aiming to end discrimition against women, India has a   large number  of laws, policies and schemes  to ensure social, economic and political upliftment of women. Despite this, women  empowerment is often crippled by  a range of social, economic, cultural and infrastructural roadblocks. There exists  a wide gap between  the goals enunciated in the constitution , legislation , policies and programmes  related to women empowerment and the situatiol reality. But  the discrimition and inequality have economic implications too. According to a study conducted by  McKinsey  Global Institute, India can increase  its 2025 GDP  estimate at  $ 4.83 trillion , by between 16% and 60% simply  by allowing women to participate in the economy  on par with men. The tiol policy for women is a move towards making women equal partner with men  in development process of the economy by elimiting all kinds of discrimition existing against them. The most revered  corporate sector  of our country often cites their rules against  gender discrimition, but women employees of this very sector are not paid as much as their male counterparts. This is the revelation of a  survey  done by  recruitment firm Monster India. According to the survey,  median wage earned by  women is 27% lower than  what men get .On an average  men earn  Rs. 259.80  per hour while their counterparts  earn just  Rs. 190.50. Gender pay gap is not uniform  across sectors. In the IT sector  women earn  around 34% less while the difference is  only 19%  in the fincial sector.  This new policy for women will address gender wage gap. Though the policy wants to end violence against women, yet  nothing has been mentioned about  marital rape. According to  official statistics, almost  95% of rapes against women( 31,507  0ut of 33, 707 reported  rape cases in 2013) involve  a family member or household , a neighbor or someone from   the community known to the victim( NCRB, 2014). Even the heavily amended  Indian Pel code  has failed to acknowledge  marital rape. Will  the existing  Domestic Violence Act be sufficient to give justice to it? Besides crimilizing marital rape ,the  High  Level Committee headed by Pam Rajput constituted by the previous UPA Government  recommended  to ban triple talaq . The new policy does not include those. But this  new policy for women is very much indebted to Rajput Committee report  on other matters.  In the meantime some  50,000 Muslim women and men have  signed a petition asking that  oral, unilateral divorce of a wife  by the husband pronouncing the word ‘talaq’ three times be outlawed  along with polygamy.  The issue puts a controversial question before the Government. The question is not that whether the Muslim community has the right to live by its holy law or not, but whether any community has the right to live by law that  destroys the rights  guaranteed to every citizen by the Constitution. As  no  deadline has been set for  comments on this policy, it is clear that the Government is taking time to take decision on these controversial issues. In order to reflect the expectation of new  aspiratiol  women,  the Government has to decide on this. One welcome step is that the Bill takes into account the  abuse women face  on social media  platforms and treat  it as a form of punishable  violence. In the wake of  increased  atrocities on  women  in the seats of higher learning, UGS  directed all the universities in the country and institutes of higher learning to  set up separate cells  to monitor  and deal with sexual   harassment cases. Unfortutely, most of the institutes of higher learning don’t have  Anti-Sexual  Harassment Cell. Similarly, most of the cities don’t have night shelter for women. Hope these will be the reality as a follow up action of the policy.  Poor women and children are tural victim of human trafficking  or modern day slavery. The draft tiol policy for women assures that requisite steps  for prevention  of trafficking at source,  transit and destition  areas for effective monitoring  of the networks of  trafficking will be given  a priority. Existing legislation / schemes for prevention , rehabilitation  of victims  of trafficking will be suitably  strengthened. According to tiol Crime Record Bureau, trafficking of minor girls   surged 14 times over the last  decade and increased 65% in  2014. The reason behind this rise in trafficking  is economic. Take the case of North East Region. The region faces floods three four times a year  which shatter the economy of the poor. Without  work and food, the poor parents compel to send their  children to metropolitan cities or states like Kartaka, Punjab, Harya for a livelihood which ends up trafficking. Without economic upliftment  of the poor this trend will continue. The tiol Policy for Women  by increasing participation of women in workforce through need-based training, creating entrepreneurial   opportunities through  schemes like  E-Haats etc, will try to do this.   Hope these two bills will be the game changer.

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