South Asia/India: 5 Priority Issues from the Girl Child’s Perspective
South Asia / India : 5 Priority Issues from the Girl Child’s Perspective
1. Peace and security
ISSUES:
- Discrimination:
Girl children are frequently targeted when peace and security are at risk. In refugee situations, they are among the most vulnerable. Girls from traditional cultural backgrounds lack social education on coping with risk situations.
All analyses of crisis and disaster situations show that different age groups among the affected people require different kinds of attention/handling/intervention in relief and rehabilitation measures. This is especially true of different age groups among children.
Peace and security do not relate to international and national political situations only. A trip to the local grocery store for a young girl could be as unsafe as being caught in a riot. It is important to give them a peaceful and secure everyday life.
Female foeticide and infanticide are also a threat to their security.
To begin with, they deserve peace and security within the family. So many little girls are victims of domestic violence (face physical and sexual abuse). They also become victims of family feuds – especially girls are abducted to settle old family rivalries.
- Lack of consultation in problem solving:
Girl children face double marginalisation from participation in decision-making that affects their lives – because they are children and because they are female. The pervasive cultural mindset that children should obey and women should accept adversely affects them.
- Poverty:
In the wake of disasters that destroy normal livelihoods, however temporarily, girl children are sold, into bondage or into prostitution, or into some ‘mock’ adoption.. There is no road back from such sale and abandonment.
Girl children working as child labour are at risk of sexual abuse and exploitation.
An increasing number of young girl children are trafficked into the sex trade.
India: With the vigilance on certain work occupations as hazardous to children, work has shifted from visible workplaces to less visible home sites, and growing numbers of girls are replacing boys in occupations that continue to be hazardous.
- All other listed issues:
Girls of all ages are affected by these issues, both because of their own vulnerability and because no one speaks up for their needs.
STRATEGY & ACTIONS:
The rights and age-specific needs of girl children must figure in policy and measures for children and for women. Older girl children in particular need education in fending for themselves. All girl children must have opportunity to take part in decision-making processes.
Globalisation
ISSUES:
- The indirect fallout of adult loss of livelihood security and the aggravation of poverty has worsened the position of the girl child. There has been a rise in adolescent sex trafficking; young girls are forced to find employment in unprotected work settings.
- As older members of the family migrate in search of work, there is increased pressure on the girl child especially the older daughters of the family to take responsibility for providing child care to younger siblings and also running the household, irrespective of their age and capacity.
- Many workers in free trade zones are below 18 years.
- Girls in such work settings are deprived of labour rights, and may be ignorant of them.
STRATEGY & ACTION:
- Measures and mechanisms should not be age-blind, but should recognise and address the special needs of younger female people.
Violence
ISSUES:
- Why is it necessary to treat peace only as friendly international relations between countries? Any violent attack is a threat to security of the individual, be it in an international, political environment of war etc. or just street violence.
- Beginning from being counted as a burden on the family from the time of birth to facing a threat of dowry death, a girl faces mental, physical and sexual violence at various levels. Early marriage of girls puts them at risk, they are not physically mature enough to meet marital demands, it could lead to obvious sexual violence and at the same time enormous mental/psychological trauma. Dowry deaths are of course an ever-present threat after marriage.
- Domestic violence: violence against children, especially girl children, is not adequately recognised by the draft Bill on Domestic Violence (India). Abuse, including sexual abuse, usually incest by family elders or relatives, goes unreported. Girl children seldom manage to speak out or seek objective help. Socially, girl children are among the last to exercise the right to information.
- Girl children are increasingly targeted for sexual attacks and rape, from a very early age. Disabled girl children are even more at risk.
- Honour killing very often targets girls below 18 years.
- Lack of effective and speedy legal procedures add to the misery of the girl child who is unable to access the legal machinery in the first place. If she manages to gather the courage and resources to address the law courts, there is no certainty that she will get justice and sometimes gets it only when it is already too late.
STRATEGY & ACTION:
- Women must speak up for girl children and fight for their protection. Crime records show that mothers (who may themselves be beaten or abused) tend not to report or protest abuse of daughters.
Women and Governance
- The impact of a policy on the girl child needs to be the basic indicator of the policy’s success or failure. Laws and policies need to be age-sensitive just as much as they need to be gender sensitive.
- If women are to take their place as responsible citizens, early education to citizenship is the right of every girl child. India: 18 is the voting age – need to study whether, and how, girls exercise their franchise.
- Girl child deserve to be liberated from socialisation that points them only towards responsible motherhood and homemaking.
- India: The National Commission for Women, and the Parliamentary Committee for Women’s Empowerment need to know that 44 % of their constituency is aged below 18 years. (Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan would have similar percentages).
Institutional Mechanisms
ISSUES:
- A mechanism is needed to ensure the girl child’s right to be born and to life and
liberty.
- Implementation of the BPFA has to recognise that the girl child exists in each of
the critical areas of concern, not just in Section L.
- There is no clear cut space for the girl child in Government ministries/portfolios. The regional SAARC decade produced no integrated policy frame.
- Both policy and programme interventions need to be age-aware and age-specific; the girl child has different problems and therefore different needs at each stage of childhood.
- There is need for a mechanism to detect and protect girls in hidden child labour.
- India: The 2001 National Policy for the Empowerment of Women short-changes the girl child; the 2003 National Charter for Children does recognise some of her entitlements. Both require review.
- The so-called “women’s component” in sectoral budgets and plans needs to recognise that 44 % of females who should benefit from this component are aged below 18 years, and have rights and needs relating to their ages. (if there were a ‘child component’ it would need to be gender-aware).
- The misconception that girls grow up to be ‘safe’ mothers/ efficient home-makers rather than people with interests, skills, talents and civic potential limits programming designed to benefit them. This needs radical change.
- Girl children have the right to holistic health care and holistic health information; they seldom have independent access to either.(This includes knowledge of nutrition and reproduction).
- Girls face various institutional barriers in accessing educational facilities, for example, parents/families hesitate to send girls to school due to lack of all-girl schools, lack of female teachers, the distances to be covered to reach school. Along with improving these infrastructural provisions, there is need to motivate parents and communities to send girls to school just like they send their sons.
(Drafted by Prachi Mittal and Razia Ismail Abbasi, with inputs from Lucinda Peach).
Women’s Coalition invites NGO interest in the issue of the girl child as a B+10 priority.
For more information please contact:
Women’s Coalition for Peace and Development
14 Jungpura – B
Mathura Road, New Delhi-110014
Ph: 011-24326025/ 011-24310959
Email: wecan03@yahoo.co.uk / wecan@bol.net.in
