International Day of the Girl child:
Are we truly empowering the girls and women of the society?
In 2011, United Nations declared October 11th as
the ‘International Day of the Girl child’, to recognise their rights and gender
parity in the society. By celebrating the international day for the girl child,
the world focuses attention on the daily challenges girls face and how to
empower them. Girls have every right like boys to a safe environment, proper
education, and healthy life. According to
United Nations there are 101 crore girls in the world and they face a lot of
discrimination, violence and abuse in the society on a daily basis. It further
states that, somewhere in the world an adolescent girl dies every 10 minutes
due to violence.
Over the last many years, India has made many strides in
advancing the cause for girl rights. More girls are now literate than ever.
Under Government of India’s Swacch Bharat Abhiyan, a lot of focus has been
given to building toilets for girls in schools. Rural Sanitation has significantly
increased to 70 % from 39% helping many women and giving them dignity and
respect. Under Pradhan Mantri Narendra Modi’s Mudra Yojana, nearly 1.8 lakh
crore has been distributed, 70% all the beneficiaries are women, which will
take the women empowerment to a new level.
Modi Government’s initiative to save and educate the girl
child under ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ is focusing on awareness among the Indian
citizens to save and to educate the girl child so that nation becomes strong by
empowering women. This will help in stopping the ever alarmingly declining girl
child sex ratio where there are only 918 girls for every 1000 boys as per the
2011 census. Under this Yojana, a saving scheme named Sukanya Samriddhi account
for the girl child has been introduced where the family members can save money
for the girl child’s education and marriage where they get good interest rates
and without any tax deduction.
Another scheme empowering women from poor families in India
is PM ‘Ujjwala Yojana’ where by, government of India provides free cooking gas
connections to 5 crore families. According to Petroleum and Natural gas
minister Shri Dharmendra Pradhan, this would benefit crores of women from very
poor families preventing them from getting exposed to toxic fumes from burning
wood and truly empowering them.
These efforts are though and critical though sustaining the
momentum is the key to the long term real time empowerment of every girl child
and women of the country.
Data from National Family Health survey states that the
Infant mortality rate (IMR) has been significantly reduced in Odisha from 65 in
2005 to 40 in 2016. However, comparing to states such as Kerala (IMR is 12) it
is still significantly higher. The Maternal Mortality rate (mothers dying per 1
lakh births) although reduced from 303 in 2004 to 222 in 2015, it is still
significantly higher than the national average of 174. According to the
Economic survey report, the gender disparity in many human development indices
in the state are discouraging such as only 62 % of the female population are
literate as compared to the 82% in males.
Every second girl and women in Odisha is Anaemic and one in 4
women suffers from low body weight suggestive of poor nutritional status.
Under the state government programme of Mission Shakti nearly
6 lakh women self-help groups are operating providing them with the economic independence
and empowering them is surely a step in the right direction.
Protecting and empowering the women is not only the responsibility
of the government but that of every citizen of the state. Unless we provide
safe and harassment free environment, proper education, and parity with the
boys in training, we cannot achieve true progress in the society. The time has
truly come for the society to reflect and act now with utmost urgency.
