Smriti Irani announces new policy draft for women's empowerment with education and violence as key focus areas
Smriti Irani recently announced a new draft policy for women's empowerment that will focus on education, violence against women, among other key issue.
The key to women's empowerment is change at multiple levels and to drive it The Ministry of Women and Child Development has prepared the draft of the National Policy for Women. The information was shared by Smriti Irani, the head of Ministry of Women and Child Development.
The draft has been created after taking into account, suggestions and comments from key stakeholders, announced Smriti Irani in the Lok Sabha.
The draft envisions “a society in which women attain their full potential and are able to participate as equal partners in all spheres of life.”
The key focus areas the draft policy identifies and plans to address include: health including food security and nutrition, education, violence against women, governance and decision making, environment and climate change.
Other areas it will focus on is economy including agriculture industry, labour, employment, NRI women, soft power, service sector, science and technology and violence against women, governance and decision making and enabling environment (including housing, shelter and infrastructure, drinking water and sanitation, media and culture, sports and social security).
Education and violence are two concerns for women in India. When it comes to literacy rates the gender disparity us huge. Data shows that in India literacy rate for (age 7 and above) in 2011 were 80.9 percent for men and 64.60% for women.
Violence against women is another key challenge that the country is grappling with. UN Women data shows that 27 percent of girls face violence as child brides, 20 percent of Indian women in their lifetime face physical or sexual intimate partner violence. They face violence and abuse within families, while using public transport, and are also harassed at the workplace.
In its previous tenure, PM Modi government had launched a few schemes to address the same with schemes like Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, a women's helpline scheme and the one stop centre scheme.
With Smriti Irani now heading the Ministry of Women and Child Development, we may be in for more changes and schemes for women empowerment. Let's wait and watch.
Edited by Rekha Balakrishnan
