World’s Fifth fastest growing economy in world,India is heading towards a huge goal and is in race with big economies. Through infrastructural development as well working on their education ,health and foreign investment systems,India is showing tremendous growth in all fields.
But with all these positives, India continues to performs badly when it comes to women security.Women security is a big issue in India, after independence huge steps has been taken to safeguard and empower women, although their condition has changed but not to that level which is expected. Statistically the numbers are horrible .
In 2018, threee lakh twenty seven thousandthree hundred and ninty four which was registered , this number is huge in itself,but the harsh truth is that same number of crime takes place against women but are not registered. these number are usually from urban areas, but in rural parts people dont resgister complaint because they feel that it will hamper their daughter and family image.
A hefty sum of money is spent onher dowry. At times, the demand from the groom’s familycontinues even after marriage. When the bride’s family fails to satisfy their demands, the bride is tortured. Domestic violence is high in Indian homes. There is dowry deaths’occurring every now and then.It has been pointed out that it is always the bride who is dying and not the women in the groom’s side when they are working in the kitchen. Many young brides die in the kitchen due to stove-burst, where the groom’s sides maskit as an accident .
Majority of rural Indian women do not have the right to choose their partner. It is always decided by the family elders and the marriage is arranged with an endogamous group, where caste plays a very important role. If the girl wishes to marry someone from other caste or tribe, the traditional leaders of the villages oppose. In states like Haryana, there are Khap Panchayats, or traditional village elders who provide punishments to both the adult girls and boysof the same village and caste, who falls in love and marries
In rural India, very few women have ownership over land or productive assets. This proves to be a road block in institutional credit. Majority of the agricultural labourers are women.They mainlyassigned manual labour. Men perform operations involving machinery.(Kurukshetra, 2003)Agriculture which is the mainstay of the rural Indian economy is sustained for the most part by the female workforce.They are the invisible life line of the agrarian rural community life.Rural women from childhood days have to bear the burden of taking care of younger siblings, cooking,engaging in domestic chores, looking after the fodder of the domestic animals in their parents’ house
Since every coin has two sides, living in Indian metropolitan cities comes with its own advantages and disadvantages. Though metropolis provides feasibility to remote corners of the city. However, it is quite challenging to reach safely at your destination. Challenges faced by people living in Indian metropolitan cities are innumerable.
Not only during the night but people are unsafe even during the day. There have been innumerable instances where people’s safety was threatened during the day and nobody came to their rescue. With rampant industrialization and urbanization, not only are metropolitan cities climbing on the growth ladder but this modernity has rendered humans bereft of humanity. During the contemporary times, be it man, woman, children, senior citizens, to name a few, nobody is safe. Safety in metropolitan cities is like a dream. The negligent behavior of authorities adds to the woes of safety measures.
Capital itself is proof how , women security is at stake . just like delhi, other metro cities are on same line. although women have started to talking and sharing in public their issues.
Anti-Social Activities
Alcohol and gambling dens and consumption of drugs like charas, ganja and “powder” make women feel uncomfortable and unsafe. The presence of men intoxicated on alcohol and drugs in public spaces creates a feeling of insecurity. Some of them also rob people, including at knife-point. Some engage in robbery to finance their drug habits.
One woman resident explained that she has told her employer that she will come as early as he wants but she will return from work early in the evening as drunk men and men taking drugs hang about the locality. School-going girls in our focus group discussions unanimously expressed a fear of harassment at the resettlement sites, while pointing out that they had never felt fear of harassment in their previous localities since those areas were populated with diverse types of people and activities, even late into the night
Solutions
Political commitment is needed to bring about long-term and systemic change that addresses the actual causes of the problem. There are no easy, rapid solutions; the long road towards gender equality and rights needs to be traversed. Jagori, a feminist organization, has been working to build a holistic framework on ending violence against women in private and public spaces. This framework recognizes that ending violence against women must be addressed through a multi-pronged strategy and must involve a wide range of stakeholders. In addition to the police and law enforcement, urban and transport planners need to engage with women as equal citizens. Further, education systems and the media need to foster an ethos of equality and to challenge patriarchal and anti-women ideologies.
Addressing the police and legal systems is not enough. We need gender-sensitive urban planning, service delivery and governance in order to ensure that our cities and towns are designed in ways that ensure accessibility, safety and inclusion. Unfortunately, more and more cities are losing public spaces and erecting higher walls. Safety audits done across cities in India have shown that effective measures taken on urban planning such as good lighting and “eyes on the street” can make spaces safer. This could include providing seating on the street, and encourage the presence of street vendors and outdoor activities.
The Latest Solution for Women’s Safety in India: The Selfie-Defense Stick
The latest weapon in the arsenal of devices to keep women safe in India is a collapsible baton that combines a Samurai sword design, stun gun, pepper spray, panic button, pen knife, oh and a sewing kit and mirror.
The Samiidha Bhavani – named after the Indian Hindu goddess of valor — is the brain child of Pune-based orthopedic doctor Pavan Kohli and according to him is the “first fully-legal and complete self-defense device for women.”
Dr. Kohli unveiled the prototype on International Women’s Day on Sunday. Women’s safety has been central to the conversation in India since the the fatal gang rape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student on a moving bus in Delhi in December 2012.
The device is the outcome of research by sports and martial arts experts from Germany, the U.K., Singapore and Japan and was conceived as an answer to safeguard women following that attack.
Other solution
1. In the first place women should be educated as education widens their horizons and broadens their outlook making them aware of their constitutional and legal rights, reproductive rights, and human rights both in their work and in the social sphere.
So mass literacy campaigns should be organized on a large scale. Emphasis should be laid on enrollment and retention of the girl child in formal schooling and no- formal education through incentive schemes such as mid day meals, free supply of text books, uniform, school bags, science kits, scholarship and residential and hostel facilities and removal of gender bias in the curriculum.
2. Proper crèches should be made available at or near her place of work for the proper care of her children while she is away to work.
3. A keen interest and sincere attention of government is highly essential to improve the health and nutrition of this vulnerable section of the society. Protection should be given against sexual harassment. Women must not be discriminated upon.
4. Women should change their attitude towards their family members and colleagues. They should respect them, be co-operative and inculcate noble qualities like love, affection, sincerity, faithfulness etc. to maintain smooth relation with them. They should be dressed decently and soberly in the office as well as in the public places.
5. Lastly women should realize that opportunities will not land in their laps. They will have to create them and if need be, fight for them. The women should fight back to restore their dignified position in society. They should thrive hard to enforce their rights and establish due justice, equality in society and work-hard for total elimination of illiteracy, poverty, dowry-ills and all for effective implementation of all women related programmes and laws.
Not all males are ill minded,so its high time for males to stand with women and support them when any female friend or office colleague is facing any such issue .Because it is always said that Society is part of bad and good people and society becomes bad when good ones stop raising their voice.!!!
Author-
Raman Tirpude
BE,MBA student
Central human right commission
raman's blog 