SHILLONG: Women in northeastern states have a long way to go to come on a par with their mainland sisters in terms of participation in politics, business and religious practices, shows a study.
Delving into the study on the social, economic and political empowerment of women in northeastern states, Rekha Sharma, chairperson in charge of National Commission for Women (NCW), said women in the North East are at a disadvantage point.
“From religious practices to participation in village level meetings… women are not allowed in many ways. And we have not seen many women participating politically, they are not contesting elections and very few MLAs are there. Politically, women are not empowered here,” she told the gathering at NEC here on Tuesday.
According to her, the eight states are different in terms of customs, religion, language, political process and there are a number of different tribes with different customs.
“Mainly, the difficulties are working with the tribe where the customs are different and not very positive for women-related laws,” she said.
Sharma also spoke on the financial standing of women in the region as she pointed that though women are working in every field, they don’t possess certain rights like on land. A task will be set up before the commission to work on such laws.
To give a certain support to widows and single mothers, she mulled the idea of skill training for such women by giving them financial help to start a business.
“We should take up the matter as a first priority so that they can sustain themselves, their families and to educate their children,” she added.
Referring to women farmers, she said that NCW will work on land rights for women farmers all over India.
Apart from women farmers, she also spoke about women weavers who are facing difficulties on marketing their products and proposed the idea of training such women on how to market their products outside India as well.
On the recommendations of the study, Sharma said, “Slowly but steadily we will work on these recommendations.”
The NCW with the help of all the State Commissions has prepared a report in two years which started in 2014 and completed in 2016.
The NCW, various State Women Commissions from other states and other stakeholders will discuss on the recommendation of the report and on how to work on the recommendations.
“We will be making agenda for the next three months and then six months and long term goals. Every three months, we will have a meeting on how far we could reach and what we have achieved,” Sharma said.
There are many recommendations for states, regions and the Center to work on accordingly.
Study report
The terms of reference of the study were to make policy recommendations for development and empowerment of women in the NE on social, economic and political issues of respective states and suggest a strategy for implementation.
Secondly, to make suggestions and recommendations to initiate policy level changes for better implementation of the existing policies, select programmes and schemes (MNREGA, NHRM, Widows/single women) for the welfare of women in NE.
A report of the findings on Social, Economic and Political empowerment of women in North east states found that women in the region are predominantly employed as cultivators or farmers, petty trade of retail nature comes next and hand-loom weaving.
It indicated that very few women were employed in the industrial or any other organized sector because of lack of industry in the region.
In this context, it stated that the recommendations on economic status of women are sought to be specific and actionable as well as need based.
The report gave a detailed study of women farmers, women traders and the difficulties they face and gave necessary recommendations in this context.
Crime against women
There is an increase of crime against women in the society, the findings reported. The major issues are alcohol, trafficking of girls and women, domestic violence and polygamy.
Among the recommendations is legal, psychological and police support to victims of crime, setting of fast track courts, medical doctors should be trained in handling cases of crimes against women.
Road infra
Referring to the road infrastructure in the North Eastern states, the report pointed to the poor road infrastructure which makes women more vulnerable if they spend long hours on the road.
In this context, the study has recommended the integrated and comprehensive road plan, specific time bound targets to be allocated to the road construction agencies and proper maintenance of roads.
Education
The findings pointed out that education of girls will increase the confidence and capability of women, build community leadership capacities in girls, bridge gender gaps in literacy rates by implementing targeted and area specific programmes to enhance women’s access to education and also stated that there should be 100 per cent enrolment of girl child in schools.
Sanitary napkins scheme
The National Health Mission under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare launched a scheme for selling subsidised sanitary napkins in which napkins are supplied by the central government, covering 107 districts in the country.
The findings reported that the usage of sanitary napkins is very high in the north east, especially in Mizoram, Sikkim and Nagaland and very high percentage of women in the northeastern states find the current price to be too high.
In this context, the recommendations were made on the extension of sanitary napkin subsidy scheme, quality control, pricing, point of sale etc.
