"We are ending every discrimination against women"

Posted On: 31 MAR 2023 5:20 PM by PIB Delhi

 The International Women’s Day celebrated throughout the country

New Delhi:  31st March 2023: (PIB//The Women Screen)::

Government has taken several steps to end all forms of discrimination against women and girls in the country through legislative framework, schematic interventions and policies/ programmes/schemes.

The International Women’s Day this year has been celebrated throughout the country with great zeal and fervor. On this occasion, several programmes, events, functions, quizzes were organized by various Central and State Government as well as other organizations. The theme of International Women’s Day 2023 is #EmbraceEquity. The Ministry of Women and Child Development does not maintain the data of expenditure incurred by various authorities on celebration International Women’s Day.

The principle of gender equality is enshrined in the Constitution of India. The Constitution of India not only provides for equality but also empowers the State to make positive discrimination in favour of women and children. The Directive Principles of the State Policy and the Fundamental Duties cast obligation on State as well as citizens to remove discrimination renounce derogatory practices and uphold the dignity of women. In line with the principles enshrined in the Constitution, the Government has taken several steps to end all forms of discrimination against women and girls in the country through legislative framework, schematic interventions and policies/ programmes/ schemes. The vibrant Indian Judiciary also plays an important role in protecting the rights and entitlements of women and girls.

Several legislations for example ‘the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955’, ‘the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 (subsumed under Code on Wages, 2019)’ and ‘the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013’, ‘the Indian Penal Code’, ‘the Criminal Law Amendments of 2013 and 2018’, ‘the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961’, ‘the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005’, ‘the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006’, ‘the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019’, three Labour Codes of 2020 etc. already exist to further strengthen this framework.

Moreover, in order to ensure that the marital status of a woman does not subject her to any form of discrimination or hardship, or have a bearing on access to services, the Passport rules have been amended in favour of single mothers. Now either the mother or the father’s name can be provided in the passport application form and there is no requirement to provide the certificate of marriage/divorce during application anymore. Earlier, providing the father’s name in the PAN application forms was mandatory. The said rule has been suitably amended to the effect that in PAN application forms, mentioning the father’s name is no longer mandatory for person whose mother was a single parent and PAN has been applied by furnishing the name of the mother only.

As a measure for improving the girl child sex ratio, the Government of India launched the ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Scheme’. The scheme is a convergent effort to prevent gender-biased sex selective elimination, ensure the survival and protection of the girl child, and to ensure her education, with an overall aim of increasing the child sex ratio. To assist the women in distress, the Government has is setting up of “One Stop Centers” (OSCs) across the country with the objective of facilitating access to an integrated range of services including medical aid, police assistance, legal aid/case management, psychosocial counselling, and temporary support services to women affected by violence.

Access to sanitation is a matter of dignity. To curb the problem of open defecation in India which affects the health and safety of women the most, the Government launched the Swachh Bharat Mission. Under this initiative over 11.6 crore individual household toilets have been constructed. Similarly, the schemes like Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana, Stand-up India, Start-up India, Skill India, Digital India are promoting the financial and digital inclusion and economic empowerment of women. There are several other schemes implemented by various Central Ministries/ Departments for promoting social, educational, economic and political empowerment of women.

As per Census of India 2011, there are over 26.8 million persons with disabilities in India, constituting 2.21% of the population. Among these, around 11.8 million are women. The National Policy for Persons with Disabilities, 2006, endorses the need to focus special attention on the needs of differently-abled women. Recognizing the need of differently-abled mothers of additional support, the Policy envisages giving financial support to such women so that they may hire services to look after their children. The Government of India introduced the Rights of Persons with Disability Act, 2016, which implores government and local authorities to take measures to ensure that women and children with disabilities enjoy their rights equally with others.

As per Census 2011, the number of widowed women is 4,32,61,478, number of separated women is 23,72,754 & number of divorced women is 9,09,573.

This information was given by the Union Minister of Women & Child Devlopment, Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.

                   ***** SS//AKS//(Release ID: 1912576)

Women Groups working for women in Afghanistan

27 December 2022

Statement by UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous is a milestone

UN Women stands in full solidarity with the women and girls of Afghanistan

Statement: The decree barring women in Afghanistan from working in non-governmental organizations is yet another stark violation of women’s rights

Statement by UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous on the Taliban prohibition of women working with national and international non-governmental organizations.

Updated

Once again, the de facto authorities of Afghanistan have found new ways to harm the women and girls of Afghanistan. As the world remains outraged by recent decisions to ban women and girls from higher education, the decree issued on the 24th December barring women from working in national and international NGOs is yet another stark violation of women’s rights and humanitarian principles. We strongly condemn this without reservation. 

This is relentless misogyny, a virulent attack on women, their contribution, their freedom and their voice.  It is yet another repudiation of every norm and standard of women’s human rights and respect for human dignity.  

In barring women from contributing to the efforts of aid organizations, the Taliban has in effect suspended aid for half the population of Afghanistan, aid that they depended on and without which they will not survive. 11.6 million women and girls are no longer receiving vital assistance. Women-headed households, which make up almost a quarter of households in Afghanistan, have nowhere left to turn and no livelihood support. Many national and international NGOs are unable to operate without their female staff. All services for women are impacted including their access to water, sanitation, hygiene, protection, food, shelter and livelihoods. The consequences of this are further increasing the vulnerability of women and girls already at risk, as services for survivors of violence or to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse are shut down. Thousands of children and families who depended on the income that women delivering humanitarian assistance brought in, are now even more destitute.

There can be no greater catastrophe in the face of humanitarian crisis than to remove the contribution of half the population in navigating Afghanistan’s daunting challenges.

UN Women stands in full solidarity with the women and girls of Afghanistan. I stress again our complete condemnation of the continued erasure and oppression of Afghanistan’s women and girls from public life and our outrage at this latest act of cruelty.

The de facto authorities must know that their actions are undertaken under the full light and scrutiny of the international community and always will be. UN Women has stayed and delivered in Afghanistan, and we will remain. Together with our partners we will make every effort to ensure that women and girls reclaim their space in contributing to the future of Afghanistan, and that their rights are restored, protected and upheld.

Many more women organisation actively working in afghanistan for the welfare of women.women for Afghan Women (WAW) is also one of them. WAW couldn’t be more proud of our partnership with @aseelapp! 

Photos Courtesy: Women for Afghan Women

Our latest dore and more families are left without basic necessities. Our food packages are able to sustain one family for moreistribution in Kabul of 91 food packages impacted over 740 beneficiaries. With worsening economic conditions in Afghanistan, m than one month. With this kind of team work, together we can impact many lives across Afghanistan. 

Our food packages are able to sustain one family for more than one month. With this kind of team work, together we can impact many lives across Afghanistan. It is the moral duty of all women orgamisations to work for all opperessed and depressed women in the all corners of thw world. Are You ready?

WAW Condemns Taliban’s ban on women working

All Progressive Women Demanding That

Taliban Should withdraw their decision to bar women from working

The Taliban should immediately allow women working to return safely to work

Allow employees of national and international organizations to restart work

Women and family in Burka/16th November 2021 Unsplash Photo By Wanman uthmaniyyah

New York, NY: 26 December 2022: (WAW//The Women Screen)::

Women for Afghan Women (WAW) vehemently condemns the decision by the Taliban de facto authorities announced on December 26, 2022, barring all women employees of national and international organizations from going to work with immediate effect. 

As a leading women's rights organization in Afghanistan for over two decades, we believe in the full equality and the right to a life of dignity for all human beings and remain committed to working towards a world in which Afghan women and girls enjoy peace, justice, equality, the freedom to participate in all spheres of life, and the right to live without fear and oppression.

Our brave women colleagues are an indispensable and essential part of our organization that serve as members of our board, executive management, and operational staff. Women are an integral part of our daily, life-saving programs that provide humanitarian, medical, legal, counseling, educational, and other support to any individual that comes to our organization for assistance. They are essential to the social services and operational activities that WAW implements every day.

Without our women staff, we would not and cannot exist. We join the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Afghanistan in reminding the Taliban that "Any such order would violate the most fundamental rights of women, as well as be a clear breach of humanitarian principles".

The Taliban should immediately end this brutal and senseless policy and allow women to return safely to work. No organization, country, economy, or community can thrive without the equal, full, and meaningful participation of women.

###

Women for Afghan Women (WAW) is a grassroots, civil society organization dedicated to advocating for women’s rights, challenging the norms that underpin gender-based violence, and influencing harmful attitudes to bring about positive change.

WAW grew from a small network of volunteers established in early 2001 in New York to become the largest women’s organization in Afghanistan before the Taliban took over the governance of Afghanistan in 2021. Today, WAW continues to expand its services to provide life-changing programs, women's empowerment education, and vocational training for its clients in the United States (U.S.) and continues to implement its humanitarian programs and work with nongovernmental and other partners across Afghanistan.

White Paper Gathering (2 Dec, 3 pm, Jantar Mantar)

Join us in solidarity with the on-going “White Paper” protests in China

The protest is being hosted by Tibetan Youth Congress in India 

-If you stand for a democratic India, come support protests for a democratic China! 

-If you’re on the Left, stand with China’s people not its oppressive regime! 

- Any regime that sees all protesting citizens as enemies of the state, as agents of foreign powers is by definition a dictatorship not a democracy. 

- Any person or group that brands protests in China or Iran as “CIA-backed regime change” or “colour revolutions” - cannot be a fighter for democracy in India, let alone a Left revolutionary fighting for the freedom of all humanity. 

- People, not regimes constitute a nation. If a regime is oppressive and undemocratic, people have every right to change it! 

- Some mock the protestors for being in a minority, claiming that the majority support the regime. But in China as in India, UK or USA, to express dissent even while in a minority proves one’s moral and physical courage. 

Come with blank sheets of paper to Jantar Mantar on 2 Dec at 3 pm - come show solidarity with Chinese, Uyghur, Tibetan people fighting for freedom and democracy! 

Come even if you’re in a minority, even if your community, your comrades hesitate to join you! Show the way of truth and justice, and they may follow tomorrow! 

- Activists Kavita Krishnan and Tenzin Tsundue, and Tibetan Youth Congress

Annual Report on Sexual Harassment and Violence

17th February 2022

DoD Releases the Annual Report regarding Military Service Academies

Photo Source Link

Today, the Department released the annual report on sexual harassment and violence at the Military Service Academies. 

This year's Annual Report on Sexual Harassment and Violence at the Military Service Academies (MSA), Academic Program Year (APY) 2020 – 2021 consists of data on sexual assault and sexual harassment reporting; a new effort to identify cadet and midshipman peer influencers and social networks; an assessment of ongoing prevention and response initiatives; and the Academies’ compliance with Department of Defense and Military Department policy.  

Photo Source Link

"Preventing sexual assault remains one of our highest priorities. No one should experience sexual assault.  While we continue efforts to stop these behaviors at our Academies, we encourage survivors to come forward and make reports so we can connect them with recovery care, and aid efforts to hold offenders appropriately accountable," said Elizabeth Foster, executive director of the Office of Force Resiliency. "The Academies must ensure cadets and midshipmen receive an educational experience that is free from sexual assault and harassment, and continue to develop future leaders who will ensure climates of dignity, respect, and inclusion."

Based on the report, in APY 2020-2021, the Department received a total of 161 reports of sexual assault that involved cadets/midshipmen/prep school students as victims and/or alleged perpetrators, an increase of 32 reports from the previous year. Of the total number of reports, 131 were from cadets or midshipmen for incidents that occurred during military service. The reason for increased reporting is unclear, as the Department did not administer a scientific prevalence survey this year. 

The Department seeks greater reporting of sexual assault to connect victims with restorative care and to hold offenders appropriately accountable. At the same time, the Department prioritizes prevention, and is implementing multiple efforts to stop it from happening in the first place.

"This year we found that there are influential academy students that make a daily difference helping others. But some still appear hesitant to act and intervene,” said Dr. Nate Galbreath, acting director of the DOD Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office. “We must do more to ensure that our future leaders have the resources and information to step up and take action to make a positive difference.”  

The Annual Report on Sexual Harassment and Violence at the Military Service Academies, Academic Program Year 2020 – 2021, a fact sheet with the topline results, and the 2021 Academy Climate and Networking Study is available on www.sapr.mil.

Army Women accept every challenge even Low Crawl

Low Crawl is necessary in army training

Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany, Dec. 14, 2021

Women accepts ever challenge in life. She compete the men even in army training. Low crawl is necessary for all army persons. Low Crawl is an exercice and a practice to learn how to save and secure self even in the rain of firing. Army Capt. Valerie Nostrant low-crawls under barbed wire during training at Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany, Dec. 14, 2021.

Photo By: Markus Rauchenberger, Army

BSF extension in Pb should be stopped immediately

 Adani and Ambani should not enter the farmings 

Chandigarh: 20th November 2021: (Kartika Singh//Punjab Screen)::

The First National Convention of Punjab women Collective began with a  one minute silence to women Martyrs at the Borders in Farmers Struggle.  More than  500 Women from all over Punjab  partipcipated in the Convention

Key Note Speaker Vandana Shiva , congratulating the Farmers Struggle said that  this is beginning of our victory , we cannot rest. Our real enemies are not Adani or  Ambani but Monsanto , Rockfeller , Amazon and her is why ? The liberalisation of the seeds industry and the arrival of the gene giant Monsanto, has resulted in frequent crop failures, huge expenses for pesticides and high level of debts for the farmersWe cannot afford the Monsanto technology for India as most of the farmers will be wiped out. The seed exchanges among farmers has been a topic of discussion in the government but the government has been hijacked by corporations, Globally, the world's top 10 seed companies control one-third of the 23-billion-dollar commercial seed trade and account for 44 percent of sales.

What does digital agriculture entail? For starters, it entails the introduction of a digital surveillance system. So far, Shiva’s organization has managed to prevent Gates from introducing a seed surveillance startup, where farmers would not be allowed to grow seeds unless approved by Gates surveillance system.

The data mining, Shiva says, is needed because they don’t actually know agriculture. This is why Gates finances the policing of farmers. He needs to mine their data to learn how farming is actually done. This knowledge is then repackaged and sold back to the farmers. It’s evil genius at its finest.

Through his funding, Gates now also controls the world’s seed supply, and his financing of gene editing research has undercut biosafety laws across the world. As explained by Shiva, the only country that doesn’t have biosafety laws is the U.S. “The rest of the world does because we have a treaty called the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety,” she says.

“While he created the appearance of philanthropy, what he’s doing is giving tiny bits of money to very vital institutions. But with those bits of money, they attract government money, which was running those institutions. Now, because of his clout, he is taking control of the agenda of these institutions. In the meantime, he’s pushing patenting, be it on drugs, vaccines or on seeds.”

Taken together, Gates ends up wielding enormous control over global agriculture and food production, and there’s virtually no evidence to suggest he has good intentions.

Navsharan Kaur, feminist researcher said the   the PM could npot see the women on broders even in is address did not acknowledge the presencae and particpation fo womwn, From  Kitchen to Fields to the borders women have been fighting been invisible for media and our PM Modi . Women  had ton fight for decades for a domestic violence at ,,, its the responsibility of state to protect women. If women want to work there is no safe workplace or safe transport , we fought .. and got sexual harassment at workplace act. Referring to Anti CAA protoest she said there too women led and here too women made the difference to the whole movement .

Punjab has 30 %  of dalit population and there is caste it ahs not disappeared we need to acknowledge and fight it together

 Dr shiva said , 'Today, when survival is at stake, when the claws of fascism, neo-capitalism and neo-colonization are spreading all across, there is a need to go beyond our ideological differences. Aa new ideologyhas emereged from farmers movement that persisitent , peacefuld emands will move the state.

Giving another example she said Within the movement, we formed a Mahila Suraksha committee to ensure the security of women protestors. Also, to strengthen women participation in the movement and enlighten it with a feminist perspective.

In 2013, there were riots between the Jats and Muslims in Muzaffarnagar, but today if you look at the delhi  border -all of them are together in this struggle for dignity. The slogan, ‘Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Isai aapas mein hai behen bhai’ has actually come alive. A new political forum like Jan Sansad has come into existence which challenges the valuelessness and undemocratic practices in electoral politics.

The movement with this unprecedented strength can be compared to the freedom movement that could drive away the British imperial forces. We just need to keep that flame alive. As long as the flame lives, even in the heart of a few, the movement will continue to thrive.

The niece of Shaheed Bhagat Singh. Gurjit Kaur  congratualting punjab Women collective said this is agood beginning of all women coming together now  this should actually roll over nationally, Punjab women being an example for the nation

Dr Kanwaljit Dhillion  convenor Punajb Women Collective  concluded by announcing  the demands of the  the Convention

1-  The BSF extension in Punjab should be stopped immediately

2.  Adani and Ambani should not enter the farmings because the farming belongs to farmers not to corporates.

3- The farmer laws should be taken back in the upcoming winter parliamentss ession till then , the farmers will not leave delhi borders.