General Assembly General Assembly

Intervention by Ms. Preeti Sudan, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Women and Child Development at the Voluntary Presentation on the Review Theme 'The elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls' at the 60th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women, on  March 15, 2016.
 


 

Madam Chair,
 

It is an honour to be a part of this segment of the 60th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women. 
 

Violence against women and girls is a universal phenomena that is one of the most pervasive and prevalent forms of abuse of human rights. It cuts across boundaries of age, race, ethnicity, culture and geography.  Any form of such violence is a manifestation of unequal power relations between women and men. This not only devalues the status of women in our society but also deeply entrenches gender bias and discrimination faced by them through-out their lives. 
 

As a nation, we do acknowledge that any form of Violence faced by women and girls- be it physical, sexual, psychological and economic - both within and outside their homes, is a serious threat to women's empowerment and needs to be holistically addressed. Government of India has been striving for gender equality in the overall framework of constitutional provisions, international commitments, enabling legislations, policies and schematic interventions. 
 

The Constitution of India conveys a powerful mandate for equality and rights of women with specific provisions for affirmative discrimination. There is an established institutional, parliamentary, judicial and executive framework in place to address the issue of violence against women. As you may know we have a strengthened legislative framework in place with laws addressing violence against women both in public and private spheres. 
 

I would now like to share with you best practices and learnings drawn from some of our schematic interventions. While addressing the decline in Child Sex Ratio (between 0-6 years), which is an alarming indicator of violence against women before and after birth, we designed the initiative of Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao as empowerment of women on a life cycle continuum. It was essential to have a multi-sectoral, convergent implementation hence the initiative has Ministries of Health and Family Welfare and Human Resource Development on board along-with the Ministry of Women and Child Development. The multi-sectoral strategy comprised of a nation-wide awareness and advocacy campaign targeted at changing mindsets, strict enforcement of legislation and a well received focussed community outreach through local innovative interventions. 
 

We realized that declining Child Sex Ratio is a symptom of socio-cultural mindset and gender bias against girl child and hence it was crucial for us to address the issue of mindset. This is a complex process as it results from conditioning through socialization which shapes our attitudes and behaviours. While strategizing on addressing mindsets we started at the grassroots and focussed on positive reinforcements towards girl child. Engagement with communities through sustained awareness, addressing of issue by local icons like people's representatives, religious leaders, teachers and grassroot functionaries was taken up. Awareness drives, signature campaigns, rallies, street plays by using folk media, mobile exhibition vans, focus group discussions and debates were conducted. Though sustaining the momentum was a challenge but local innovations in the districts maintained the interest and engagement of the community on the issue. Dedicated day on value of girl child, special meetings of village councils on child sex ratio, celebrating birth of girl child, felicitating parents of girl child, plantation drives symbolizing nurturing and care for girl child, oath taking, recognizing girl achievers in the community were some of the local innovations undertaken as part of the programme.    
 

In order to bring visibility to the issue, Guddi Gudda Display Boards exhibiting sex segregated birth statistics are being installed in public places. This has brought the issue of declining Child Sex Ratio in the public discourse.  
 

Regressive social norms are being challenged by collective community action. Some of these initiatives are celebration of birth of girl child, promotion of simple weddings, challenging the son-centric rituals, supporting women's rights to inherit and own property, rewarding local champions who have defied social norms, engaging youth including men and boys through Gender Champions
 

Effective use of Social Media enhanced outreach especially amongst the youth. Variety of social media platforms have been used for spreading positive messages about value of girl child in the public domain. This included extensive use of MyGov platform, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Vikaspedia, G+, Google Hangout, WhatsApp and recognising Women achievers selected through public voting in association with Facebook.
 

Engaging with Civil Society, International Organizations and Industrial Associations ensured sustained engagement of various stakeholders on the issue and has catalyzed action on ground. 
 

Communitizing implementation of the initiative has brought widespread acceptability. Shaurya Dal  (Valour  Group of 5 men and 5 women) is one such community led initiative to combat violence and social evils against girls and women. We have institutionalized Community Outreach through Village Convergence and Facilitation Service (VCFS) aimed at creating awareness through Village Coordinators and facilitating convergence on women's issues. In our endeavour to improve public-police interface and facilitate women in distress, Women Police Volunteers in villages and communities across the country have been envisaged. 


To provide a mechanism to access help, One Stop Centres are being set-up in various parts of the Country with services including medical aid, police assistance, legal aid/case management, psychosocial counselling, and temporary support services to women affected by violence.  
 

We are building gender responsive police force through training programs, performance appraisal and by providing 33% reservation to women in police force. To improve the quality of investigation for crimes against women, investigative units are being set-up in 150 most crime prone districts in the Country, equipped with specialized investigators of which 1/3rd of the unit will be women. 
 

We are building Village sanitary complexes under the Swachch Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India by 2019) to provide safe access to sanitation facilities by 2019. This would ensure women and girls are not at risk of assault and rape simply because they lack proper sanitation facilities.


In our experience of implementing these schematic interventions, our major learning on the issue is that sustained multi-sectoral actions are needed to converge and provide a comprehensive response to tackle any form of violence against women and girls. Further no schematic intervention can succeed without the involvement of communities hence community engagement, partnership and ownership is extremely critical for the success of any intervention. It is also important to give flexibility to your implementing partners to experiment, innovate and showcase within the broad framework of the guidelines for any intervention. 
 

              Major learnings:
             1.    Multi-sectoral approach is a must-No single Ministry can tackle violence issues alone.
             2.    Convergent action is the key.
             3.    Allow flexibility for local, innovative solutions.
             4.    Identify local champions.
             5.    Make calendar of regular community/collective action.
             6.    Give place for advocacy to local icons/influential people.
             7.    Communities have solutions-listen to them; allow them to tell their stories. CSO are the key here.
             8.    Along with strict implementation of Acts, positive reinforcement is essential


As a Nation, we continue to be committed to end all forms of discrimination and violence against women and girls and work towards building a gender equal society. 


Thank You!