Women in Assam

The draft photo electoral rolls of Assam, published recently, have brought to light a very interesting fact: female voters have outnumbered male voters in 69 of the state’s 126 Legislative Assembly constituencies. It is a reflection of the healthy sex ratio in Assam. What is most significant is that this increase in the number of women voters also indicates that there has been a significant increase of female population in Assam in the past 14 years, since the last Census conducted in 2011. Assam’s sex ratio, as reflected in the 2011 Census report, stood at 958 females per 1,000 males. It was 935 in the Census report of 2001. According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) for 2019–2020, Assam’s sex ratio was 1,012 women per 1,000 men. This indicates that the state has a skewed sex ratio in favour of women. The improved sex ratio, which has also led to more women voters than men in 69 Assembly constituencies, however, does not help paint a rosy picture of the overall status of women in Assam. Rather, other statistics prove that the situation is far from satisfactory. In the words of the World Bank, there has been mixed progress for women in Assam. For instance, maternal mortality rates in Assam have improved over the past three decades, but they are still the highest in the country. The National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) has also brought to the fore a few more not-so-satisfactory facts about the status of women in Assam. According to it, 31.8 percent of women surveyed across Assam said they had married before attaining 18 years of age. Moreover, sterilisation of women dropped from 9.5 percent to 9 percent between the surveys of NFHS-4 and NFHS-5. On the health front, NFHS-4 has revealed that 65.9 percent of women in Assam were anaemic, which is higher than the national average. What is even more alarming is that a little over 34 percent of women across Assam aged 18-49 reported experiencing physical or sexual violence, while about 6 percent reported both. And, to make things worse, only about 10 percent of women who experienced violence have sought help. Given these ground realities, there appears to be very little reason to rejoice over female voters outnumbering their male counterparts in 69 Assembly constituencies. What probably is required to change the scenario is to ensure more women—and empowered women—getting elected to the State Legislative Assembly.