General Assembly General Assembly

 

STATEMENT BY MR. MAYANK JOSHI, FIRST SECRETARY,  ON AGENDA ITEM 27: ‘ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN’ AT THE THIRD COMMITTEE OF THE 69TH SESSION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY ON 13th OCTOBER, 2014.

 

Mr. Chair,

 

We thank the Secretary General for all reports highlighting key issues on the Advancement of Women. We also thank the Under Secretary General (USG) and Executive Director (ED), UN Women, Deputy Executive Director (ED), UNFPA nad Chair of Commission for Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) for their useful introductory statements.

 

India is committed to promoting an enabling environment for the advancement and empowerment of women and to the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and its Platform of Action. Gender equality and empowerment is enshrined in our Constitution.

 

Six key strategies, are (i) Economic Empowerment; (ii) Social and Physical Infrastructure; (iii) Enabling Legislation;(iv) Women’s Participation in Governance; (v) Inclusiveness of all vulnerable and marginalised women, (vi) Engendering National Policies and Programmes. These strategies are overseen by the National Commission for Women, National Mission for Empowerment of Women and the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Empowerment of Women. The National Resource Center for Women provides the central repository of knowledge, research and data on gender issues.

 

India has achieved considerable progress with 50% reservation for women in grass root governance, and nearly 1.5 million elected women representatives. Since 2005, the Government has introduced Gender Budgeting and it has increased from 2.79% to 5.83% of the total outlay between 2006 to 2013.

 

National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM), aims to bring out 70 million rural households out of poverty by focusing its efforts on uplifting the socio-economic status of women through Self Help Groups (SHGs). Initiatives include establishment of an exclusive Bank for Women, micro-credit schemes for income generation activities for the most needy and marginalized women and legislation to preserve women’s right to property.

 

The Government enacted the landmark National Food Security Act in which women above eighteen years of age are to be treated as the head of household for the purpose of issuance of food grains under the Public Distribution System. 

 

We have enacted specific legislations for ensuring a safe and secure environment to women both at home and workplace; to make punishments relating to offences against women more stringent; and to protect vulnerable and innocent children from sexual offences including offences against girls.

 

The Nirbhaya Fund set up in 2013 supports initiatives by the Government and NGOs towards protecting the dignity and ensuring safety of women in India. The Government is also introducing ‘One Stop Crisis Centre for Women’ in 100 identified critical districts with the aim to provide integrated services required by women subjected to violence.

 

In the field of education, the Education for All Campaign (Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan) has made tremendous impact on girls. There has been an increase in literacy amongst women from 53.67 % (Census 2001) to 65.46% (Census 2011) in India and the gender differential in education is declining.

 

Government has just launched the innovative ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao—the Save Daughters, Educate Daughters’ campaign with a budget support of Rs 1 billion establishing a link between safety and education. An important part of the programme is give reward and recognition - all schools, institution workers and volunteers are a part of this mass campaign.

 

The National Rural Health Mission is working on improvement of many indicators pertaining to gender and women, including women and girls from vulnerable communities. There is significant decline in maternal and child mortality rates. Healthcare schemes focus on young and adolescent women to become self-reliant, i nutritional supplementation and education, health education and services, counseling and life skills and vocational training.

 

Mr. Chair,

 

We appreciate the commendable work of done by UN Women. We salute them. We have also fulfilled our commitment of extending five million dollar assistance, spread over five years, to UN Women's core predictable funding.

 

Mr. Chair,

 

Statistics testify that even today women bear a disproportionate burden of the world’s poverty. Eradication of poverty, promoting the empowerment of women and gender mainstreaming must also be therefore a key economic development imperative of the post 2015 development agenda. We look forward to the comprehensive appraisal and review of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action in March 2015.

 

India is fully committed to the vision of Empowered women living with dignity and contributing as equal partners in development in an environment free from violence and discrimination. It is a central objective for our new government.

 

I Thank you.

 

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