Dr. Kavita Suri
‘Six month year old girl raped’, ‘Another Nirbhaya like incident in Delhi’, ‘School girl delivers baby in school bathroom’, ‘India loses 4 % GDP to malnutrition’, ‘Girl, 9, rescued from marriage to 30-year old man’, ‘Seven year old Gujjar girl killed in Kathua’, “Indian girl dies after gang rapists rupture her lungs’….…..
Every day when I pick up the newspapers or even log on to various news portals on my smart phone, hardly a day goes by when I don’t come across such news. Today is no different. Or is it? The only difference between today and rest of the 364 days of the year is that today the political leadership of the country would once again take a pledge to save the girl child, to work towards her empowerment, to ensure her safety and security and so on and so forth as part of the National Girl Child Day which is observed every year on 24th of January since 2008.
As the entire nation has geared up once again to celebrate National Girl Child Day and promises would again be made today like the past years for her empowerment, I sit and ponder in silence as to why we have failed hundreds and thousands of our girls all over the country. The issues are complex, multi-layered and manifold. The issues are about inequality, the issues are about discrimination, the issues are about gender-based-violence which starts from the womb of the mother itself, the issues are about rights and duties, morals and ethics, the issues are innumerous but the fact remains that these issues are not being addresses with the pace they needto be addressed.
National Girl Child Day is celebrated in India to increase the awareness among people about all the inequalities faced by the girl child in the society. The inequalities are vast including education, legal rights, medical care, protection, honour, child marriage etc. The issues like female foeticide, malnutrition, discrimination, child labour, health etc are profound.
Though the government has taken various steps to improve the status of girl child including banning of sex determination test, banning child marriages, making primary school education free and compulsory for both boys and girls till 14 years of age, launching schemes like Ladli Beti and Beti Bachao Beti Padao etc, then still why the results are minimal !
Every eight minutes, a girl child is reported missing in India. Approximately 16 million girl children are believed to have been trafficked into the sex trade. In a country of 1.2 billion people, 3 million missing people perhaps is no issue at all. India still remains the world capital for child marriages. Amongst all the states in India, it is Rajasthan that tops the list with the average age of a girl at marriage being 16.6 years, closely followed by Bihar at 17.2 years and Madhya Pradesh at 17 years. Unofficial sources estimate that there are even 100 million children in India who are working in hazardous conditions. The National Labour Institute indicates that 74.4 million children are neither enrolled in schools nor accounted for as child labourers.
It is assumed that half of them would be the girl children. Besides this work, millions of the girls are engaged in invisible domestic work at home which is not recognized as an economic activity and which is not under the purview of law, there is no identifiable employer and it can take long working hours including taking care of the younger siblings.
India has made a considerable progress in girl education and with all the efforts the literacy rate grew to 74.04% in 2011 from meager 12% in 1947. But still, India has not achieved what it should have during this period. Females constitute about 50% of country’s human resource but lack of education snatches their chance to be a part of the progress and development of India. This means our pace of progress is less than the required pace.
More than 50 percent of girls in India fail to enroll in school and those who do are likely to drop out by the age of 12. The girl child is also discriminated against extensively in the right to education, even basic at times. Lack of education denies the girl child, the knowledge and skills needed to advance their status. Persistent female illiteracy is a major impediment to women’s empowerment, empowering women and adolescent girls through literacy and education can enable them to develop analytical skills on gender, development and other issues.
It is very necessary to remove different types of social discrimination and exploitation that the girl children generally face in their lives. It is very necessary for the girls to get full potential, safe and enabling environment. They should be aware of all their legal rights and the facts of life.
The time is ripe for each one of us to take an individual pledge to work for the removal all the inequalities faced by the girl children of the Indian society, to make certain that every girl child is getting proper respect and value in the Indian society and thus ensure that the girl children are getting their all the human rights in the country. Lets take this pledge together on this National Girl Child day that we would collectively change the people mind about the girl child and address the girl children issues associated to their health, respect, education, nutrition and etc. Let’s start this from our homes today on this day.
(The author is Director and Head, Department of Lifelong Learning, University of Jammu)
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