Working Paper of the India Alliance for Child Rights
Prepared by Women’s Coalition for Peace & Development
UN Questionnaire:
1. Overview of Achievements:
a. Policy on gender equality, and status of it:
The Constitution of India accords equality to women and men (1950). The National Policy for the Empowerment of Women was adopted in 2001, replacing an earlier policy of 1987.
There is a National Commission for Women, which gives insufficient attention to the girl child. There are also state commissions. A national commission for children is on the cards; the draft bill does not reflect much focus on the girl child.
The departmental bureaus for women and child development do not connect or complement effectively; the girl child flits between the two, has been administratively attached to the child development wing.
There seems to be no answerability for the status of the girl child or any monitoring mechanisms.
b. NPA status:
A ‘component plan’ for mainstreaming women/gender parity into all sectors of government operations was instituted. Being age-unaware, it does little for the girl child’s interests.
c. Millennium Declaration and Millennium Development Goals:
Basically, this is a flawed question, and implies that only one Goal relates to women, when actually they all apply.
Government of India was part of the Millennium Summit process, and is technically party to its decisions, but firmly resists UN efforts to monitor how it is pursuing MDGs. The nodal ministry for women (WCD/HRD) has not declared any connections between its PFA and MDGs follow-up processes. The girl child figures in many other MDGs, but there is no reference to MDGs in any of GOI’s pronouncements on children. So the girl child is short-changed on both the gender –related and child-related Goals.
d. CEDAW effect on legislation and enforcement:
CEDAW’s provisions assume that girls live, and grow up to be women who deserve justice. Some of the key survival rights are not directly addressed in CEDAW, so application of its provisions may not cover girl child concerns. Doubtful whether CEDAW was in the minds of those who have drafted child rights policies, or schemes to benefit girls.
e. Legislative and policy-making achievements:
Neither the policy for women nor the new national charter for children give required attention to the girl child. Laws relating to children have not been reviewed or revised.
f. Budget impact:
Budget shares for children are very low, and poorly spent. Girl children get some attention in school education objectives, but budgeting remains low. The girl child is not an accepted ‘indicator’ for either budget share or budget use.
g. Policy discussion/parliamentary debate:
The sole “women’s issue” in Parliament has been the bid to reserve parliamentary seats for women. The shocking bad news on the juvenile sex ratio that came out of the 2001 Census did not create any comparable ripple. There is some notice being taken of the rising presence of minor girls in the sex trade, less of the increase of girls in child labour.
h. Armed conflict:
Women and girls are regularly targeted in conflict situations. In the Gujarat riots and attacks on Muslims (technically not classified as ‘armed conflict’ since it is within the country), girl children were attacked and killed; children were specifically targeted in these riots, and girls were especially vulnerable. The Gujarat riots brought their political fallout.
i. Globalisation:
The 2000 NGO assessment of Beijing Plus Five in India pointed out the negative impact on
the poorest and lowest-skilled communities and groups, especially women, and the way that these have been pushed into the unorganized sector and into less and less secure work situations. The impact on girls, the linked rise of child and adolescent sex trafficking and un-protected work settings, the indirect fallout of loss of adult livelihood security and the aggravation of poverty, were all reported five years ago; the situation is no better today. Reports on the benefits of market liberalization generally fail to take account of these impacts.
j. Sectors showing change/improved gender perspectives:
In respect of the girl child, the key in-house linkage between child-related and women-related policies, planning, programmes and monitoring has still not been implemented. Inter-sectoral links in planning and execution of measures limits the efficacy of many development processes. The SAARC Decade of the Girl Child (1990-2000) offered an opportunity for linkage; it was missed. If there is a women’s component that does not get well-applied, there is no child component to put to the test at all.
k. Partnerships with NGOs, civil society, private sector:
Linkages with NGOs continue to be inadequate, and more directed to implementation than partnership, in both child rights and women’s rights issues. The NGO plea that the State must not abdicate its responsibility in social development applies to all potential beneficiaries. The girl child is not likely to escape the drift towards privatization. Increased cost of basic services would mean that parents/families will be less likely to spend scant money on girls.
l. Men and boys for gender equality:
The graph of female foeticide keeps rising, and the persistence of infanticide and death due to early neglect do not show any great success in moving society away from ‘son preference.’ The national youth policy and Tenth Plan recommendations on adolescents call for re-orientation of boys and young men to respect women.
2. Progress in Implementation:
A. Examples of successful policies, changes in law, programmes:
a. The new National Policy for Women’s Empowerment came into force in 2001. One scheme (Kishori Shakti Yojana) was re-named in 2003. A new Domestic Violence Bill is still afloat in the parliamentary process. The National Plan of Action for Children (draft of Dec 2003) gives inadequate attention to gender disparities, and omits commitment to survival rights.
The Balika Samriddhi Yojana aims to place ‘value’ on the girl child by offering funds for daughters, it has only reached 2.5 million families.
b. In terms of the girl child, not well enough because she has not been targeted as a priority.
c. This is a flawed question: why does it not mention any of the conferences that focused on children’s rights: such as the Yokohama Congress against commercial sexual exploitation of children, the World Congress against child labour, the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children. This is at odds with the 1995 PFA, which took note of the World Summit for Children. If the UN itself is not asking the question comprehensively enough, why would governments answer any differently?
B. Obstacles, remaining gaps:
d. The essential obstacle, gap and challenge is to position the girl child as a priority in the pursuit of PFA objectives and MDGs. The UN fails to do this, and so do countries. If the South nations cannot argue that half of the world’s female people in need of human rights and justice are not adult women but girls below 18, it may be because they have not understood where the core problem lies.
C. Lessons learned:
e. The lesson has not been adequately learnt. There is need for analysis of the female Indian person rather than ‘woman’. Age profiling must apply to all analysis and programme design, as well as monitoring and assessment. This is critical for the Tenth plan review even more than for a B+10 document.
3. Institutional development:
a. The girl child in India continues to fall between the sectoral divisions of ‘women’ and ‘children,’ and therefore the necessary mechanisms cannot be said to exist.
b. The nodal department (WCD) has focal bureaus, and some ministries have ‘women’s cells.’ These do not give needed priority to the female aged below 18 years.
c. Official data include statistics on girl-boy gaps and disparities. This gap and disparity calls for serious re-thinking. One advance is that gender/sex disaggregated data is being reported more frequently.
d. In relation to children and youth, these remain seriously inadequate. The first challenge is to recognise the need.
e. The girl child is not seen as an indicator of women’s advancement. The problem begins and ends right there.
f. Parliament has a special committee for the empowerment of women: it fails to identify the rights of the girl child. Academia, especially the many university centres for women’s studies, has totally failed to examine and investigate the problems of girl children. NGOs working for women sideline the girl child; NGOs working for child rights mostly follow suit, except on specific issues like trafficking.
4. Main challenges and actions to address them:
To begin with, in reviewing its own situation for Beijing Plus 10, the Government needs to examine the child impact of each of the 12 PFA Areas of Concern. This would yield needed insights into who is left out of present policy perspectives and programming investment. This could be done at any time.
44% of female and male Indian people are aged below 18.
If half the country’s children face gender injustice throughout childhood, how will child rights objectives be achieved?
If the surviving girl children grow up socialised and forced into second-class citizenship, how will women be empowered?
If it fails to re-examine the issue, India will fail to solve the problems of either women or children. The girl child today is a telling indicator of this failure to date.
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
