Regress report: Editorial on ever-increasing rape cases in India

 Almost ten years on after the Delhi rape case, 4,28,278 cases of crimes against women were registered in 2021, almost double when compared to the 2,44,270 reported cases in 2012.

The gang rape of a woman in a Delhi bus on December 16, 2012 is seen, for many reasons, as a watershed moment in the discourse of crimes against women and relevant deterrence. A decade is perhaps an adequate time to take stock of the situation. A year after the horror, the rape law was amended — the definition of sexual assault was expanded, the quantum of punishment for rape increased, the unscientific ‘two-finger test’ discontinued, and filing police complaints made less bureaucratic — at least on paper. Almost ten years on, 4,28,278 cases of crimes against women were registered in 2021, according to the National Crime Records Bureau, almost double when compared to the 2,44,270 reported cases in 2012. These are just official figures. The ground reality could be far worse because sexual crimes often go unreported owing to shame, ostracisation, fear of perpetrators, and an expensive, long-drawn-out and often fruitless legal process. After 2012, a dedicated corpus called the Nirbhaya Fund was established, partly to get rape victims easy access to justice — 30% of this fund remains unutilised; in Maharashtra, the money was used to provide security to legislators. The conviction rate of rape cases stood at a poor 28.6% in 2021. This can be attributed to institutional warts: poor investigation, procedural flaws that weaken prosecution and so on. Combined with institutional failures is the attendant social regression: rapists being asked to marry their victims by quasi-judicial authorities is not unheard of; these days, there seems to be tacit political support for certain instances of transgression — Bilkis Bano’s tryst for justice is a case in point. The popular endorsement for instant retribution — the death penalty remains in place in India — is an outcome of larger failures.

NCRB data also throw up a more potent source of threat — the home — but the law remains non-committal. Even though 32% of all crimes against women were committed by their husbands, there is a dogged refusal to address, even recognise, marital rape. The regression on women’s safety is also evolving. India saw a 45% increase in rapes of Dalit women and girls between 2015 and 2020, many of these were punishments for ‘violating’ caste lines. An NGO working to provide legal aid to rape survivors has noted that the nature of the crime itself has changed — the rise in gang-rapes bears evidence of the transformation. Things have certainly changed in 10 years — but for the worse.

Source: The Telegraph, 21/12/22

What’s in World Bank’s new toolkit on making urban transport better for Indian women?

 On December 8, the World Bank launched a “Toolkit on Enabling Gender Responsive Urban Mobility and Public Spaces in India” with the aim of suggesting ways to make public transport in Indian cities more inclusive of women’s travelling requirements.

The toolkit emphasises on the importance of integrating a gender lens in transport policies and infrastructure, making various recommendations on interventions that can help make urban transport safer, especially for women. It brings together 50 case studies of best practices and efforts from across the world, along with a special inculcation of the Indian context.

Poor public transport curtails women’s financial independence and agency

Studies show that women, especially those from lower socio-economic groups, are among the biggest users of public transport in Indian cities. Their dependence on public transport stems from lower discretionary incomes. Further, women have unique mobility patterns, often travelling shorter distances, using multiple modes of transport, and travelling with dependents, during “off-peak hours”.

Currently, urban mobility systems are not catered to these unique needs of women. This can make travel inconvenient, unsafe, and also more expensive for them, putting an additional burden on a section of society which is already disadvantaged. While many women use public transport on a daily basis out of compulsion, the state of public transport systems has a major impact on a variety of decisions made by women.

Studies have shown that lack of safe, inexpensive and reliable public transport has a profound impact on women’s ability to access education and employment opportunities, in turn leading to poorer life outcomes for them. India’s female labour force participation rate is among the lowest in the world, standing at just 30% in 2019-20. Lack of viable urban transport is frequently cited as a major impediment for women to access better employment opportunities.

Studies have also shown how distance from home impacts women’s choice of colleges and other educational institutions — and by implication their financial independence and agency.

Safety, efficiency and cost are major concerns

Lack of safety and also the lack of a perception of safety are a major impediment for women when it comes to accessing public transport. Dearth of good street lighting, no reliable last mile transport, and high waiting time at remote bus stops are just some of the challenges in this regard.

Crucially, beyond being safe, public transport infrastructure also needs to be perceived to be safe, as it is the perception that guides decisions to use such transport. With safety issues turning women away from using public transport, a vicious cycle is created — unsafe transport leads to fewer women travelling out which in turn leads to fewer women out in public spaces which actually make these spaces even more unsafe.

Since the burden of care work (mostly unpaid) lies disproportionately on women, they often need to plan their travel far more meticulously than men, having to juggle various responsibilities at home and work.

For instance, a working mother might have to plan her travel schedule around the school timings of her child and the office timings of her husband. This means that women have a far greater need for public transport to be time-wise reliable and efficient with longer waiting times and delays having a deleterious effect on them.

Women also face higher costs of travelling. This is mainly because of two reasons.

First, women have to stitch together various short commutes to fulfil the many responsibilities they have. For instance, a typical day for a working mother might involve commutes from home to school back to home, then to her place of work, then back to school and back to home. The World Bank recognises this as “trip chaining” and this increases travel costs.

Second, women often also make decisions to use certain kinds of more expensive routes or forms of transport on account of them being perceived to be more safe. For instance, women often take longer routes to travel which are perceived to be more safe, rather than travelling through “unsafe areas”.

All these factors amount together as a “pink tax” that specifically burden women and impede them from making optimal decisions for themselves.

What does the World Bank toolkit suggest?

The World Bank suggests a four-pillared approach to help address prevailing issues in urban transport for women.

First, there has to be greater effort made to understand the on-ground situation with a gender lens. Gender blind planning and infrastructure development leaves major gaps that specifically impact women but are often not overtly visible. The first step to addressing these gaps is to better identify what they are. Any new transport policy or infrastructure development must be preceded by an honest evaluation of issues concerning women.

Second, once prevailing issues are identified, policies and development plans must reflect the concerns of women. For this to happen, there must be more women in key institutions in charge of decision making. Until such time women are not adequately represented, their needs are always likely to be secondary. Thus key to actually inculcating a gender lens in public transport planning and development is involving and giving authority to more women stakeholders in the first place.

Third, the toolkit emphasises on building gender sensitivity and awareness among service providers through mandatory programmes and community action. Everyone from the bus conductor to local beat constables must be aware of concerns that women have and how to address them,

Fourth, investment has to be made in better infrastructure and services with a focus on women-friendly design. While increasing services and strengthening infrastructure is a good idea in general, if such development is made from a specific gender lens, it is far more useful. For example, while creating new bus stops is good, it would be even better if these bus stops were designed to be level with the floors of buses, adequate lighting, SOS buttons, and well-maintained washrooms.

Some concrete interventions that the toolkit suggests include creation of wide obstruction-free footpaths, street lighting, clear signages, dedicated bicycle lanes, introduction of short and circuitous bus routes, and subsidising/making free public transport for women.

Who does this toolkit help?

According to the World Bank, the toolkit contains practical tools that can inform a wide set of policymakers as well as private or community-based organisations. The aim is for this toolkit to be a reference for any entity engaging in any work regarding public transport and urban mobility. Not only does this tool kit provide many practical interventions, it also highlights certain thematic issues that one can encounter in this space.

Crucially, the point of this toolkit is not to make gender an additional concern for policy makers and developers. Rather, it is to integrate a gender lens into everyday planning and development in order to make our cities safer and more accessible to women.

Written by Arjun Sengupta

Source: Indian Express, 10/12/22

Great burden: Editorial on austerity measures adversely affecting women

 1.7 billion women were pushed below the poverty line as well as being foisted with more caregiving as they worked an additional 512 billion unpaid hours in 2020

Historically, austerity measures have been implemented in times of economic crisis. Arguably, they are necessary to maintain a country’s creditworthiness in the eyes of lenders. Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Italy and the United Kingdom have all opted for it during the recession of 2007-2009. But a new Oxfam report, The Assault of Austerity, shows how measures such as cutting public wage bills and social protection budgets — central to an austerity regime — create gaps that are passed on to households and adversely affect women. The findings have contemporary relevance. As the world navigates through the economic ravages of Covid-19, conflict and the climate crisis, four out of every five governments are now locked in austerity measures, slashing public services like health, education, and social protection rather than snipping wealth and windfall taxes. The consequences of the pursuit of austerity on women are telling. For instance, 1.7 billion women were pushed below the poverty line as well as being foisted with more caregiving as they worked an additional 512 billion unpaid hours in 2020. More than 10 million women fell out of the workforce globally since 2020 and lost $800 billion in income. In India, only 7% of men lost their jobs, compared to 47% of women. The ‘invisible’ costs included a striking rise in intimate partner violence — one in every 10 women is assaulted at home. Moreover, budget cuts during lockdowns forced 85% of countries to shut their emergency services for survivors of gender-based violence. Access to amenities was hampered too: women and girls are facing even more difficulty getting clean water — the lack of which already kills 800,000 of them each year — along with affordable food, given the sharp rises in costs.

Austerity is not inevitable; it is a choice. A progressive wealth tax on the rich can raise almost $1 trillion more than what governments are planning to save through cuts in 2023, according to Oxfam. The skewed sense of priorities is revealing: 2% of what governments spend on the military is enough to end interpersonal, gender-based violence in 132 countries. The absence of systemic data — or wilful blindness to it — on the economic violence being perpetrated upon women means that governments are making their decisions in the dark. Feminist budgeting and progressive taxation, where taxes are invested in universal social protection and public services, putting the specific needs of women at the heart of policymaking could make a world of difference.

Source: The Telegraph, 30/11/22

Challenges Faced by Women in STEM And How To Address Them

 Technology and innovation are the forerunners of development in India and the world. Education and progress in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) are essential components of this development in terms of overcoming challenges across sectors and ensuring their growth and expansion.However, as India stands at the precipice of becoming a global power, one must acknowledge that to move forward in any field, equal participation by women is imperative. Women in the STEM segment, until recently, faced severe hurdles in gaining access to equal opportunities, but the situation is gradually improving, and women are participating in the field in large numbers. This article discusses how bringing more women into STEM will contribute to the greater development of our economy.

The Situation At Present

Statistics suggest that over 43% of STEM graduates were women. The All India Survey on Higher Education Report estimates that over 10,56,095 women have enrolled in graduate, post-graduate, and Ph.D. courses in the field, as of 2019-20. The Science Technology and Innovation Policy were launched to increase this number by 30% by 2030. The policy also aims to revise the sectoral strategies and priorities of the industry to make it more inclusive, decentralized, evidence-based, and expert-driven. The Scopus database also suggests that women have authored one in three research papers published in India. Estimates also indicate that India is second in the world in terms of the number of women CEOs in the tech sector.

These developments paint an optimistic picture for women in STEM. Women in India are breaking the glass ceiling and excelling in all realms of STEM. Women like Roshni Nadar, the chairperson of HCL, Sharmistha Dubey, the CEO of Match Group, and Revathi Advaithi, CEO of Flex, are exemplary role models who have changed the face of the industry in modern times. However, more must be done to ensure fuller participation and a gender-friendly workspace. Several shortcomings need to be countered if we hope to achieve equitable and balanced development.

What Does The Future Hold?

The Indian government has taken several laudable initiatives to encourage women to join the STEM bandwagon and achieve milestones. For instance, India’s participation in the Gender Advancement for Transforming Institutions project and the launch of Consolidation of University Research for Innovation and Excellence played a pivotal role in paving the way for women in STEM. However, more must be done to push women to reach their full potential.

Women scientists and young achievers are also being given recognition through women excellence awards distributed by SERB. National Women Bioscientists Awards are also accorded to senior researchers in the field of biotechnology for their contribution. Many companies today are incorporating policies like flexible work timings, provision of daycare, and relaxation of age limits to encourage women further to participate in the STEM field. Learning platforms are organizing workshops and seminars to provide women with upskilling and reskilling opportunities, where they can learn by interacting with recognized women role models.

Although experts in the field of psychology have repeatedly suggested that there is no significant difference in the aptitude for STEM subjects between men and women, the participation of women in these fields remained low for a decade. However, the industry has come a long way from that, and today women are not only entering the STEM fields but are leading major companies and corporate houses in the industry. This has been enabled by the hard work and determination of these women, changes in the workplace policy, and deploying more financial and human resources for effective training of these women in technologies like AI and ML.

Sonya Hooja

Source: The Telegraph, 24/11/22

Empowered Women

 India has set a stellar example of reserved quotas for women in local governance for a country that has a poor record of its overall commitment to women’s rights. It is an example of how a country can successfully empower women, politically, economically, and socially.

India is far from perfect in ensuring women’s rights, but quotas at the local government level are making a real impact. Development experts are discovering that societies and cultures that invest in and empower women are on a virtuous cycle. They become more affluent, better governed, stable, and less prone to violence.

By contrast, countries that limit women’s educational and employment opportunities and their political voices get stuck in a downward spiral. They are poorer, more fragile, and have higher levels of corruption. In the last two decades, the gender landscape in rural India has been slowly greening, and women are now on the cusp of a powerful social and political revolution. The harbinger of this change is a unique policy experiment in village-level governance that has brought transformative results for the weakest of the weak and the poorest of the poor: the village women.

In 1993, India introduced the Panchayati Raj Act, mandating a three-tiered structure of local governance at the village, block, and district levels with reservation of one-third of all posts in Gram Panchayats (village councils) at the bottom tier of India’s decentralised governance system, for women. The vision was that these women-headed councils would bring greater transparency and better governance to their villages.

It revitalised an age-old method of rural local government whose name “panchayat” is drawn from Sanskrit, meaning the council of five wise men. This new law was a step towards the fruition of Mahatma Gandhi’s dreams of village-level self-governance with gender justice as a critical pillar.

Gandhi believed that if implemented correctly the Panchayati Raj system would alleviate the alienation of the common people from governance and preclude the external intervention of higher-level civic officials, who might not be familiar with the concerns of local people.

Earlier politics was considered a foul word, and women were expected to keep a hygienic distance from it. However, development scientists and social activists now acknowledge that the modern development paradigm has political salience and that politics underpins all facets of development. Politics is the firing engine for all the cylinders of development. It is true that political power needs to be sanitized and has to be reinforced with ethical underpinnings to make it more benevolent.

This can come about only when more educated and development-oriented individuals embrace politics as a critical arena for innovation and change. Politics is the fulcrum of governance, and unless the quality of political timber is improved, governance will continue to limp.

Experience of this social and political experiment has shown that women are not just equal to the task but also orientate public-good provision more towards the preferences of their gender, namely more water, healthcare, and roads. Though less politically savvy and often only semi-illiterate, these women had an advantage in being actively mentored by trainers who are building the district bureaucracy.

Several NGOs also designed programmes to skill them in governance. Women face a host of difficulties in handling political power – cultural norms, social hierarchies, and patriarchal practices ~ which together tend to favour and attract men and discourage the participation of women. India has set a stellar example of reserved quotas for women in local governance for a country that has a poor record of its overall commitment to women’s rights.

It is an example of how a country can successfully empower women, politically, economically, and socially.

In 1993, an amendment to India’s constitution formally established Panchayati Raj (local democracy), a three-tiered local governance structure at the village, block, and district levels, to represent small rural communities. It has been called a silent revolution, the most significant social experiment of our time, and one of the greatest innovations in grassroots democracy. It is one of the crown jewels in India’s democracy.

And thanks to quotas reserving spots for female representatives, several women have been making their way up India’s governance ladder. More than thirty lakh women have become politically active, with over ten lakh of them being elected to public office every five years. They are no longer puppets, rubber stamps, or proxies for their husbands.

The rise of Indian women as heads of Gram Panchayats is a spectacular achievement, given that India has one of the worst records concerning how it treats females. Malnourished, suppressed, uneducated, violated, and discriminated against, Indian women have the odds stacked against them. Remarkably, they are now setting Indian demographics and social indices right.

These elected women are now role models to other women in their communities and are altering the development agenda to address issues critical to them. Their impact touches other areas, which may lead to enduring overall change. This role model effect can help close the gender gaps in other realms because higher aspirations translate into more significant investments in girls by their parents and themselves.

Several women who started their political careers as self-described “rubber stamp” officials are now asking about budget allocations. They stride about in government offices with polished informality sharing their concerns with officials in tones of supportiveness and assertiveness. They successfully challenge the traditional village male elite by defying social codes of female bias and are now powerful aspirational symbols and role models.

Women leaders today are more than just mouthpieces for their politically-savvy husbands. However, the path they have trodden after the initial euphoria of winning elections has not been easy. There have been growing pains and many early entrants retreated, never to emerge again.

The avalanche of social and cultural mores rained heavily on them. Although the resistance is whittling down, it is clear that achieving gender equality in leadership will require sustained policy actions that favour women over a long time. The vision is not as romantic as many would like us to believe.

But as women have shown, they have all that is needed to ride out these storms. The men know this very well, but they don’t want to concede that women possess the ability to be the better halves because they are afraid of losing their last refuge, that is, politics.

In the long term, the journey will be harder than policy wonks can imagine. The wait could potentially be eternal. But if bureaucrats can muster the will, they can succeed. They know from past lessons that they have the tools and need to vigorously back reforms that can engender greater empowerment for women. For sustainable change to happen, women must actively compete in the present political game.

Legislation and policy pronouncements seldom penetrate the surface of social and political barriers. They are ultimately impotent against the grid of the established power structures inherent in most rural households and villages.

The great strength of democracy, according to Amartya Sen, lies in that “it gives people in need a voice and, by so doing, plays a protective role against so many different forms of political and economic abuse.” Panchayati Raj is just the beginning; it is only one step on the way, but it is the right step on the right ladder.

These women are reconfiguring gender and social dynamics and have started exploring their wider responsibilities as stakeholders and citizens of a polity. However, decentralisation is not easy. The skill levels in impoverished communities are very low.

And in a country where democracy has been established in a top-down manner, a feudal mindset may still prevail. The people may not be aware that the government should be accountable to the people, and not the other way around. A lot of positive changes are coming in better-governed villages.

There are still large swathes where discriminatory traditions continue to dominate. Several factors constrain the effective participation of women leaders, including a lack of basic familiarity with political governance and the absence of legal literacy. Women need to be given adequate advocacy tools to strengthen democratic engagement and gain control over local resources.

Village assemblies are a critical participatory institution in providing equal access to all members of the community to the deliberations and negotiations in local governance. Still, elite control of these bodies has prevented functional democracy from taking root. This is the reason why, in several remote and tribal pockets, Panchayat Raj has failed to enhance the social outcomes for most citizens.

The social pecking order of villages cannot be overturned easily, and several challenges remain to fuller empowerment. Legitimately-elected women representatives remain vulnerable to manipulation and harassment and are often reduced to mere proxies, while the actual decision-making authority remains with their husbands or power brokers from higher castes.

At the policy level, we must understand the structural impediments in the full evolution of Gram Panchayats as functional governance units remain. The Panchayati Raj Act created these bodies but did not endow them with various governance functions like financial authority for the provision of education, health, sanitation, and water.

Instead, the law simply enumerated the functions that could be transferred and left it to the State Legislature to devolve them. There has been very little devolution of authority and functions till now. Gram Sabhas were expected to be the primary legislation of rural governance with responsibilities to catalyse local planning by conducting ‘needs assessment’ exercises and devising plans for development projects aggregated at the panchayat level.

These would become official inputs into the state government’s annual budgeting process when further aggregated and rationalized at the district level. Gram Sabhas did remain a pivotal institution in local planning but had a little real role in governance.

Despite the noble intention, they have struggled to stay relevant. They continue to be plagued by low participation and frequent hijacking by influential interests and have not been able to mature into viable democratic units. The dip in popular participation and weak political will has had significant implications for the future of democratic decentralisation in India.

The heroic stories of tenacious women scripting tales of success are significant signs of a brighter tomorrow. Women’s empowerment is a journey that yields simple policies, not a fixed point.

MOIN QAZI

Source: The Statesman, 17/11/22

How we can make the digital space safer for all, particularly women

 

What could be helpful is to elevate the public discourse around technology-facilitated abuse. There is a need to focus on safety tools and features across platforms

India has one of the youngest youth demographics in the world (27 per cent are Gen Z while 34 per cent are Millennials) and among the most active online. As online interactions increase, more and more content is created and shared among people, helping them form new and wonderful connections. Sometimes, however, these interactions also make them vulnerable to harm.

Women are often particularly vulnerable. “What should I do, I can’t tell my family!” is a common refrain, heard from young women across the country when they grapple with the fallout of their private pictures being leaked online — sometimes from a hacked account, other times because of a soured relationship. In a culture where mobile phones sell because of the quality of their cameras, it should be no surprise that young men and women are exploring new ways to express their sexuality and navigate relationships, including through the taking and sharing of intimate images. However, it is increasingly evident that these new social norms have created new forms of abuse, as intimate images are being used to blackmail, shame, coerce, and control. Women are usually the victims.

Often, crimes that disproportionately impact women devolve into mass panic and lead to an all too predictable top-down discourse around the need to “protect our sisters and daughters”. This reaction, however well intentioned, will end up denying women their freedom and agency by their so-called “protectors”, many of whom are simply telling women to go offline, to be ashamed of expressing themselves, to stay in their lane.

Fortunately, leading academics — many of them women — are spearheading research around the topic, so that we may more accurately discuss and grapple with the evolution of technology-facilitated abuse, including intimate image abuse. Industry, too, has a role to play. If platform providers could be more responsive to the concerns and experiences of women then, to some extent, better design can help mitigate such issues.

A simple example is that of “unwanted contact”, one of the reasons why women avoid online spaces. This could mean design choices that help women stay in control of who they engage with, thereby reducing unwanted messages or advances. It could also mean leveraging open source technology that detects and blurs lewd images so that women don’t need to see unsolicited pictures. Therefore, focussing on safety tools and features — across the spectrum of websites and apps — could bring forward more ideas for creating a safer internet experience.

Various parliament committees in India have held meetings to discuss the issue of online safety of women over the years, and part of the government’s motivation in notifying the new IT rules had been rooted in the growing concern regarding the safety and security of users, particularly women and children. These are very good tangible steps. With the IT Act coming up for a rehaul, there is an opportunity to discuss in detail the nature of technology-facilitated abuse, capturing what this means, understanding how cases impact individuals as well as communities, the language needed to capture such offences and the punishment — penalties, jail or even rehabilitation programmes for perpetrators. This could be the start of an era of evidence-based discussion. Already, we know that crimes against women are the top category in India’s crime statistics, with cyber crimes a few rungs lower on the scale. Where the two intersect is where we need to focus if we are to make online space safe.

Despite these efforts, it is clear that women in India won’t feel safe online anytime soon unless society lets them. What could be helpful here is to elevate the public discourse around technology-facilitated abuse.

Written by Mahima Kaul

Source: Indian Express, 15/11/22

The writer is Director, APAC Public Policy, Bumble.

Young married women are sleeping less and working more in Indian homes, time-use data shows

 M

uch has been written about the fact that only about 1 in 5 women of working age is in paid work in India. Arguments have been made about both gender norms related to marriage, childcare and domestic work as well as the lack of suitable jobs adversely impacting women’s decision to enter labour market.

It is unlikely that any one side can entirely explain a complex phenomenon such as women’s participation in paid work. However, how young Indian women spend their day and how this pattern changes as a result of marriage and employment can throw light on constraints emerging out of gender norms. Specifically, understanding the extent of the trade-off between leisure and work (both paid work and housework) for India’s young women can help us appreciate why they may not enter or retreat from paid work – as has been witnessed in recent years, especially in rural areas.

We extract individual-level data on the pattern of daily time use from the nationally representative time use survey conducted in 2019-20. We then consider women in the age group of 20-29 years who report their primary status activity either as involved in domestic work or employed. This is the age group when women tend to have the largest transformation in time spent in different activities due to marriage and childrearing. With the rising education levels of women, this is also the age when women aspire to start their careers and rise up in their workplaces, especially in urban areas. We leave out young women who are in education because their daily activities mostly revolve around their studies.

Married and employed means less sleep, more work 

Looking after the house and family is a full-time job for most women. Young women who are engaged solely in domestic work spend around 8 hours daily in household chores and child/elderly care. It is feasible that they spread their work throughout the day and end up reporting more time than they actually spend or need in housework. Nonetheless, it is reasonable to assume that it takes up around one-third of their day.

Young women who are employed end up spending 1.5 hours more – 9.5 hours daily in work, adding together time spent on paid work and housework. On average, they spend 5 hours and 15 minutes in paid work and just over 4 hours in housework. Given that housework does not reduce enough to offset the time spent in paid work, the overall burden of work rises for young women who are employed.

If we group young women by their marital status and then compare their daily time spent in work (paid work plus housework), it increases to 10 hours daily for those who are married and employed. Their pattern of work also shifts in favour of housework – they spend half an hour less in paid work, working only an average of 4 hours and 45 minutes out of 10 hours of total work-time.

In contrast, those who are single and employed, spend only 1.5 hours on housework and nearly 6 hours and 40 minutes on paid work. That means, for employed young women, marriage and childcare responsibilities raise time spent on housework from 1.5 hours to around 5 hours and 20 minutes daily.

Consequently, young employed women who are married reduce their time spent on leisure, sleep, self-care and maintenance as well as activities related to community participation due to the dual burden of paid work and domestic work. Daily time spent in all the above groups of activities is the least for these women. They spend barely 1 hour and 20 minutes in leisure activities compared to over 2 hours for married women who are not in paid work, and spend 45 minutes less in self-care and sleep compared to their counterparts involved in domestic work.

Bringing more women into the workforce

It is no surprise that only a few women can manage this trade-off and continue to work full-time after marriage. While the lack of suitable jobs may be a part of the story for a lower proportion of young women in paid work, if a marriage shifts the pattern of housework so drastically for women, it tells us that working full time after getting married makes it difficult for women to manage daily life physically and mentally.

Unless the burden of housework is shared more equally among family members or can be outsourced, more proportion of young married women in India taking up a job and sustaining it for long periods is unlikely. Alternatively, the norms around marriage, which are considered universal in India, especially by a certain age, need to undergo a significant change if the country aims for a higher proportion of young women to take up paid work, if they want to.

Vidya Mahambare is a Professor of Economics and Director (Research),Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai, Sowmya Dhanaraj is a Senior Research Fellow, Good Business Lab, and Shambhavi Chandra is a graduate of Madras School of Economics. Views are personal.

Source: The Print, 4/08/22

Ensure equal inheritance for all women

 It is extremely disappointing that women in Bangladesh continue to be doubly deprived in terms of inheriting (or getting access to) property and wealth. On the one hand, they still do not get paternal property in the majority of cases; on the other hand, they are being deprived of, or facing challenges in accessing, mahr (denmohor) or dower which is allowed in the Islamic family law. Despite mahr being legally required for all Islamic marriages, women are facing layers of obstacles in actually getting it. And since Bangladesh’s family laws do not ensure equal rights for women in inheritance and family property, often they are being put into extremely difficult positions. These same difficulties are affecting women of other religions too. For example, despite India amending its Hindu Inheritance Act in 2018 to ensure that women have equal property rights as men, Bangladesh is yet to take any such measures. Clearly, gender disparity in our country transcends religious boundaries, as experts have also noted in a recent seminar.

As such, what we desperately need is a uniform family law for all religions covering men and women that governs marital and inheritance rights as well as rights that ensure self-guardianship and autonomy for every individual. The present situation is not only discriminatory, in a way it is also denying women of their basic human rights, in violation of our constitution which states that all citizens are equal in the eyes of the law. And such discriminatory practices are further hindering the economic, social, and political progress of our nation. Admittedly, this is not the only discrimination that women face in our country; they face it almost in every sphere of life, in terms of education, social safety, career, family affairs, etc.

This culture of discrimination has to change first if we are to ensure that women get their rightful access to inheritance and property. And as much as that is the responsibility of the whole society, the government also has a big role to play here. To tackle the crippling effect of gender inequality, women’s economic status must be strengthened as a priority. Thus, the government should empower the courts and arbitration councils so that women can quickly and fairly access their rightful share of property, following separations from husbands or deaths of parents. Additionally, in keeping with the spirit of the constitution, it is high time the government amended the existing family laws in Bangladesh to ensure equal rights for all women to inheritance and family property.

Source: The Statesman, 31/07/22

Abortion laws around the world

 With the US Supreme Court overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision that established a constitutional right to an abortion, the United States is now among the few dozen countries that have severely restricted access to the procedure.

Now, individual states will decide whether to permit or restrict abortions, the court ruled on Friday night. As of now, abortions are illegal or heavily restricted in at least 11 US states. In around 12 others, laws are already in place that will allow state authorities to swiftly ban or restrict access to the procedure, according to an NPR report.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world, abortions are either banned entirely or permitted with certain restrictions in place. Very often limits are placed on when an abortion is permitted, generally around gestational time limits. We take a look at some of the abortion policies in countries across the globe.

What is India’s abortion policy?

India’s Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 allows abortion until 20 weeks of pregnancy. An amendment in 2021 raised the ceiling for abortions to 24 weeks for special categories of pregnant women sucThere is no upper gestation limit for the procedure in cases of foetal disability as long as it is approved by a medical board of specialist doctors set up by the governments of states and union territories.

Which countries have altogether banned abortions?

Abortions are illegal in 24 countries, where about 90 million or 5 per cent of women of reproductive age reside, according to the global advocacy group, Center for Reproductive Rights. These include Senegal, Mauritania, and Egypt in Africa, Laos and the Philippines in Asia, El Salvador and Honduras in Central America, and Poland and Malta in Europe.

As per the hardline laws in some of these countries, women are imprisoned for getting abortions. In El Salvador, for instance, several women who have undergone abortions have been found guilty of “aggravated homicide”, including in cases of miscarriage.

Malta is the only country in the European Union that bans abortions under all circumstances. Just last year, the country witnessed a massive pro-choice movement calling for the country’s centuries-old abortion laws to be reversed. Meanwhile, in 2021, Poland introduced a near-total ban on abortions, allowing the procedure only in cases of rape, incest, or when the mother’s life is at risk.

In Africa, while the number of unintended pregnancies has dropped by about 15 per cent in the last three decades, abortions have shot up by about 13 per cent, according to data compiled by Guttmacher Institute. Many African nations have either banned abortions altogether, or severely restricted them. In Nigeria, the procedure is only permitted if the mother’s life is in danger. Meanwhile, in Zimbabwe and Botswana, it is allowed in cases of incest, foetal defects and rape.

Which are the countries that permit abortions, but with significant restrictions?

Around 50 countries — including Libya, Indonesia, Nigeria, Iran and Venezuela — permit abortions if a woman’s health is at risk. Several others allow it in cases of rape, incest or foetal abnormality.h as rape or incest survivors, that too, with the approval of two registered doctors.

For instance, Brazil allows abortion only in cases of rape or foetal disability. In such cases, the woman will need approval from one doctor and at least three clinical experts. A health ministry regulation in 2020 stated that doctors are required to report to the police anyone who seeks an abortion after being raped.

Where are abortions more easily accessible?

In Canada, Australia and much of Europe there are few restrictions other than gestational limits. While Canada has no law granting the right to an abortion, it is still permitted at all stages of pregnancy regardless of the reason for 34 years. In 1998, the country’s Supreme Court struck down a longstanding federal law banning abortions.

The court ruled that the law violated a woman’s right to “life, liberty and security of the person” that was enshrined in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Most European countries permit abortions within gestational time limits, which most commonly is about 12-14 weeks. But in many countries, there are a variety of exceptions that allow abortions to take place even later. For instance, in the UK, pregnancy can be terminated right up until birth in cases of foetal disability.

Notably, many traditionally conservative Catholic countries in Europe and Latin America have expanded abortion rights following widespread protests by pro-choice groups and women’s rights activists.

Last year in Colombia, the Constitutional court voted to legalise abortion before 24 weeks of pregnancy after the case was brought before the court by the Causa Justa movement, which comprised human rights and civil society groups, The Washington Post reported. Before this, abortions were only allowed in the case of rape, nonviable pregnancy or if the life of the mother was at risk.

Meanwhile, the Mexican Supreme Court last year voted to dismiss a state law that made it possible for authorities to arrest women for undergoing abortions, even in cases of rape.

One of the most remarkable shifts in abortion rights was witnessed in Ireland, where in 2018, the public voted to overturn the country’s restrictive abortion laws. Now, a woman can opt for abortion within 12 weeks of pregnancy. However, the law states that those who facilitate an illegal abortion can still be arrested, with a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.

In 2019, neighbouring northern Ireland became the last remaining UK nation to lift the ban on abortions.

New Zealand decriminalised abortions in 2020, extending the legal period to 20 weeks of pregnancy. Before that, two doctors had to approve an abortion, which was only done in very serious cases when the pregnancy posed a Serious danger” to a woman’s health.

Written by Rahel Philipose 

Source: Indian Express, 26/06/22

Sex as work

 

Laws should free consenting sex workers from stigma, and grant them rights

A long-standing demand of sex workers that their work be decriminalised has been partially fulfilled with the Supreme Court passing an order on May 19 that adult sex workers are entitled to dignity and equal protection under law. Directing the police to respect the rights of consenting sex workers, the Court observed that “... notwithstanding the profession, every individual ... has a right to a dignified life under Article 21 of the Constitution”. It reiterated what the Court had ruled in Budhadev Karmaskar (2011), that sex workers are also entitled to a “life of dignity”. With the Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill yet to see the light of day, the Court invoked powers under Article 142 to issue guidelines till the legislation is in force. In 2011, it had set up a panel to look at prevention of trafficking; rehabilitation; and conditions conducive for sex workers who wish to continue work. As the Court awaits the Government’s response to the panel’s recommendations that adult sex workers should not be “arrested or penalised or harassed or victimised,” a three-judge Bench led by Justice L. Nageswara Rao did well to direct the police to treat “all sex workers with dignity and should not abuse them, ... verbally and physically, subject them to violence or coerce them into any sexual activity”. During the hearings, the Additional Solicitor General Jayant Sud had conveyed to the Court that the Government has “certain reservations” on some of the panel’s recommendations.

The Court has asked the Government to respond to the panel’s suggestions in six weeks. By holding that basic protection of human decency and dignity extends to sex workers and their children, the Court has struck a blow for the rights of an exploited, vulnerable section. Coming down heavily on the brutal and violent “attitude” of the police toward sex workers, the Court said “it is as if they are a class whose rights are not recognised”. It has asked State governments to do a survey of protective homes under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, the legislation governing sex work in India, to review the cases of “adult women” detained there and process their release in a time-bound manner. The ITP Act penalises acts such as running a brothel, soliciting in a public place, living off the earnings of a sex worker and living with or habitually being in the company of one. The Court’s general observations should help sensitise the police, media and society toward sex workers, who have generally been invisible and voiceless. The ball is in the Government’s court to draw up appropriate legislation to free consenting sex workers from stigma, and grant them workers’ rights. In that too, the Court suggested the Centre and States involve sex workers or their representatives to reform laws.

Source: The Hindu, 28/05/22

The importance of consent: On marital rape

 

The institution of marriage cannot be allowed to sanction force and violence

A split verdict in the Delhi High Court on the question of criminalising marital rape has reignited the controversy over legal protection for disregard of consent for sex within marriage. On Wednesday, while Justice Rajiv Shakdher, who headed the Bench, struck down as unconstitutional the exception to Section 375 of the IPC, which says that intercourse by a man with his wife aged 18 or above is not rape even if it is without her consent, Justice C. Hari Shankar rejected the plea to criminalise marital rape pointing out that any change in the law has to be carried out by the legislature since it requires consideration of social, cultural and legal aspects. With the judges differing on key points such as difficulty in getting evidence, the importance of consent, whether the state’s concerns about safeguarding the institution of marriage were valid, and if other laws against sexual violence protected married women, the issues involved may have to be ultimately adjudicated with the help of a third judge or a larger Bench of the High Court or the Supreme Court. The Union government has been opposing the removal of the marital rape exception. In 2016, it had rejected the concept of marital rape, saying it “cannot be applied to the Indian context” due to various reasons, not least because of the “mindset of society to treat marriage as a sacrament”. However, in the final hearing, the Union government did not take a stand on the issue.

Justice Shakdher’s opinion goes to the heart of the matter, inasmuch as it treats the absence of consent as the core ingredient of rape. He says what is defined as rape in law should be labelled as such, irrespective of whether it occurs within or outside marriage. He finds that the marital exception violates equality before law, as well as deprives women of the right to trigger a prosecution for non-consensual sex. Besides, it also discriminates among women based on their marital status and robs them of sexual agency and autonomy. In contrast, Justice Hari Shankar’s opinion, somewhat disconcertingly, de-emphasises the element of consent and lays much store by the importance of preserving the institution of marriage to such an extent that he holds that any legislation that keeps rape out of a marital relationship “is immune to interference”. If marriage is regarded as a partnership between equals, an exception in a 162-year-old law should have had no place. While there are other laws governing civil relationships that legitimise conjugal expectations, these cannot be seen as giving a free pass for violence within marriage, which is essentially what sex without consent is. Whether the legislative route is more appropriate in making marital rape a criminal offence is a matter of detail. What is important is that sexual violence has no place in society, and the institution of marriage is no exception.

Source: The Hindu, 13/05/22

Marital rape is rape: Why modern India still won’t accept this

 On May 10, 2022, a two-judge bench of the Delhi High Court gave a split ruling on marital rape, thus ensuring a future hearing in the Supreme Court. The legal battles will, of course, continue but this may nevertheless be a good moment to examine the issues that lie behind it.

Obviously, marital rape is rape within marriage. But for most of history and in most parts of the world, such a thing simply did not make sense. Indeed, it could not make sense because the concepts of rape and marriage were seen as mutually exclusive – they could not be brought together.

To understand why this was so, we need to look at marriage. Across the world, and till very recently, marriage has been explicitly treated as being outside the purview of rape. Even in the Western countries that we associate with the more “advanced” practices of gender equality, marital rape was treated as an exception to the crime of rape till the early 1990s. Only the former Soviet Union had marital rape on its statute books soon after its creation in 1922. In the absence of a universal definition, several scholars take marriage to be an institution where a man and a woman live together, have sexual relations and engage in cooperative economic activity.

Others have emphasised the link between marriage and property, or more precisely, the passing on of property from one generation to the next. The dominant form of marriage in the modern West became quite distinctly patriarchal, visible in late 18th-century British law, for instance, whereby a wife became the property of her husband upon marriage. Sexually, economically and legally, she belonged to him. Husbands, therefore, had the right to access their wives sexually, without the question of coercion or consent being on the horizon in the first place. As property, wives had to be protected from the (illegal) sexual access of other men, and here too, their consent was irrelevant.

We can now appreciate why the idea of marital rape simply could not exist, much less become part of criminal law. As one of the first English legal writers on the subject put it, a man can no more rape his wife than he can rape himself. Moreover, sexual intercourse was necessary to “consummate” a marriage, within which, once again, consent was beside the point.

In the long century since feminist voices were first raised, the idea took shape that the dominant institution of marriage needed to be fundamentally rethought, such that, among other significant issues, marital rape was conceivable. For this to be possible, a woman must continue to be a person who can give or withhold consent, even after she consents to be a man’s wife. If what distinguishes the relationship of husband and wife from other relations between men and women is the legitimate expectation of sexual relations, then the introduction of marital rape signals the entry of a new and equally legitimate expectation: A wife’s consent to sexual relations is essential, and in this, she is no different from other women. Husbands no longer enjoy unquestioned rights over the bodies of their wives — this is what it means for a wife to be a person with bodily integrity.

It is strange, indeed, that most parts of the world, India included, became modern while continuing to believe that wives are the property of husbands. Hindu society upgraded prior notions of kanyadaan, the gift of the virgin from father to husband, in which, again, no notion of consent on her part was required. This became the subject of slow reform from the 19th century.

Why is it so hard even for contemporary society to accept that the commitment to marriage between two persons presupposes a kind of mutual respect that cannot include forcing oneself on the married partner? Why, instead, do we hear the opposite, for instance, the government of India’s argument in 2017 that removing the exception of marital rape would “destabilise the institution of marriage”? And why, in the words of the learned High Court judge who upheld the exception clause, should it be far worse to be “ravished by a stranger” than by one’s own life partner?

Written by Mary E John

The writer is an independent scholar, formerly professor at the Centre for Women’s Development Studies, New Delhi)

Source: Indian Express, 12/05/22

This is what keeps educated women out of the workforce

 A recent international Deloitte survey reports how women’s workplaces are driving them out of full-time jobs, while the pandemic years have only made things worse in terms of burnout and work/life balance. A few vignettes from our study of educated, middle-class, non-working women in Delhi illustrate this:

“My husband has a lung problem; he and my teenage kids are on their computers and I am in the kitchen the whole day. We have our allocated spaces to avoid Covid; he can’t work if he has doubts…”“We cannot step out, someone delivers our groceries; my husband says he may get ill if we go out.”“Hygiene and care is important and I need to be with my teenage children once they’re home, I cannot leave them to the maids. But I’m in the kitchen all day since Covid arrived”.“I did a PhD from AIIMS in biotechnology and worked there, then my husband moved from Delhi and we had a daughter… Since Covid began, I did some online classes with school children, so I can manage my child and WFH husband”.In India, low and declining levels of women’s workforce participation demonstrated in official data has stimulated research seeking to understand demand and supply side drivers. Another approach is to look at factors influencing decisions of non-working women. NSS data suggests that non-working women respond positively when asked if they are willing to work part-time. What relevance does this have for educated women? Based on interviews before and during the pandemic, we explored some of these questions. There are societal patterns that have emerged in the social milieu of education and work, wherein boys become family breadwinners while girls prioritise functions of care and reproductive work. How does this play out in the lives of women?One respondent said: “I have a lot of girl cousins, and what I saw was that they went to school and college while they waited to marry”. Anita, in her mid-40s, with a postgraduate degree in management and 12 years of corporate sector experience, gave up her job to support her children at the crucial “end of school and college entry” moment. Sudesh, in her mid-40s, with long experience in HR, started her own recruitment company. Concerns over the security of her school-going children, apart from domestic responsibilities, mean that she now works intermittently. Neera, in her late 40s, has a Bachelors and Masters degree in English and Management respectively; and 10 years of corporate sector experience. Having married a colleague, she had twin girls, hoped to get back to work, but one of the twins was autistic: “This was the end of corporate work for me; autism is a complex condition with medical, behavioural, and developmental issues, you have to immerse yourself in finding solutions.”

“Marriage is not so important these days, career is,” said 47-year-old Mohini, while speaking about her daughter, although she quit work once her daughter was 7. “My job was not a 9-to-5 one, I never got home before 7 pm; I had no time to see to my daughter,” Mohini added. She started a handicrafts business, which is on hold now as her child approaches the school-leaving stage. Another respondent said: “I got married and was on night shifts. Work was not possible without family support and there was no one to take care of the kids. ”Running through all these conversations are rigid workplace demands, lack of sustained family/social support, personal responsibility to guide children and ensure their security. This reflects absence of good-quality childcare, counselling and mentoring. These inexorably influence choices. Educated women, however, exercise agency. Many in our sample actively engage in voluntary and paid activities including teaching, home-based marketing, consulting, tutoring etc. Periods of hectic work are interspersed by spells of no work. Such productive work contributes to society and economy, but being intermittent and often unpaid or voluntary, it goes unrecorded. For women to work consistently, during pandemics or otherwise, we need stronger supportive infrastructures. Then we may not face the bewildering situation of poverty driving women into the workforce, while education seems to drive them out of it. The choice then need not be between familial care and pursuing careers.

Written by Ratna M Sudarshan , Mala Khullar

Source: Indian Express, 5/04/22