SOME SCHEMES AND POLICIES FOR WOMEN

SABLA scheme

With the objective of improving the nutritional and health status of adolescent girls in the age group of 11-18 years and empower them by providing education in life-skills, health and nutrition, the Government of India has introduced the Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls - SABLA in November, 2010. The Scheme also aims at equipping girls with information on family welfare, health and hygiene, existing public services, etc., and to draw out-of-school girls into the formal or non-formal education systems. The focus of the Scheme is primarily on out-of-school girls. An integrated package of services-comprising nutrition and non-nutrition components-are provided to adolescent girls, the ‘Nutrition Component’ targeting out-of-school girls between 11 and 14 and all girls in the 14-18 age-group. The scheme is being implemented through Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) projects and Anganwadi Centers in 200 select districts across the country. The following services are being provided under the Scheme: a) Nutrition provision (600 calories, 18-20 grams of protein and micro-nutrients for 300 days); b) Iron – Folic Acid supplementation; c) Health check-up and referral services; d) Education in nutrition and health; e) Counselling and guidance on family welfare, adolescent reproductive and sexual health, childcare practices and home management; f) Education in life-skills and on accessing public services; and g) Vocational training for girls aged 16 and above under National Skill Development Programme. Some State-Specific Initiatives of Sabla a) In Madhya Pradesh and Orissa, NGOs are being utilised for all awareness generation activities and training of the Sakhis and Sahelis. Once a week, interactions of the school going and the non-school going adolescents was also organised so that interactions of the school and non school going adolescents are enhanced and the latter is motivated to join school. Once in three months on a fixed day i.e., on Kishori Diwas, general health checkups including measurement of height and weight and referral services are organised for all the adolescent girls by the Anganwadi worker with help from the health functionaries and referrals to specialised health care facilities for health problems that need special attention. Each adolescent girl is provided a Kishori Card which is a tool to monitor the services the adolescent girl utilises under the Sabla scheme. b) In Bihar, the state government has clubbed the vocational training of the adolescent girls 16 – 18 years and initiated the Hunar scheme of the Education department, a special state level initiative to empower the minorities, schedule castes and scheduled tribes. Under this arrangement efforts are made to provide commercially viable training and develop employable skills among youth who have atleast passed the 8th class. c) In Gujarat, the state government has rolled out the Mamta-Taruni programme to ensure adequate healthcare and timely counseling to adolescent girls. The programme is aimed at providing healthcare to girls who are out of school, because there already exists a health programme especially for school students. Through this programme the young girls are also given physical and psychological counseling for the changes taking place in the body during adolescence. Every six months, the nutritional status and hemoglobin levels of the girl are achieved and they are given treatment for anemia if needed. To ensure maximum participation in the programme, the state government has introduced a small monetary provision. The idea is to ensure that maximum number of girls, especially in rural areas, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes participate in the programme. The state also gives the 'peer educator' i.e. Sakhis a small token amount of Rs 25 for every meeting so that they bring as many girls to the kishori samooh meeting as possible, and make them aware. At the same time, the Anganwadi worker is also given an incentive of Rs. 50 for calling the meeting and counseling the girls. d) In Jharkhand, the state government has taken a special initiative to establish effective linkages for vocational training in order to build the technical and professional skills of adolescent girls. The state has also started a statewide social mobilization Campaign for Health and Nutrition for adolescent girls, which was inaugurated by Health minister of the state in a function where all interventions under Sabla were initiated.

 

 

UJJWALA SCHEME

Ujjwala is a comprehensive scheme that was launched in 2007 for prevention of trafficking and rescue, rehabilitation and reintegration of victims of trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation What is human trafficking? Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings mainly for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation or forced labour. These are mainly divided as: Bonded labour - Victims become bonded labourers when their labour is demanded as a means of repayment for a loan or service in which its terms and conditions have not been defined or in which the value of the victims’ services as reasonably assessed is not applied toward the liquidation of the debt. The value of their work is greater than the original sum of money "borrowed." Forced labour is a situation in which victims are forced to work against their own will, under the threat of violence or some other form of punishment, their freedom is restricted and a degree of ownership is exerted. Forms of forced labour can include domestic servitude; agricultural labour; sweatshop factory labour; janitorial, food service and other service industry labour; and begging. Sex trafficking victims are generally found in dire circumstances and easily targeted by traffickers. Individuals, circumstances, and situations vulnerable to traffickers include homeless individuals, runaway teens, displaced homemakers, refugees, job seekers, tourists, kidnap victims and drug addicts. While it may seem like trafficked people are the most vulnerable and powerless minorities in a region, victims are consistently exploited from any ethnic and social background. What are the objectives of the scheme? a) To prevent trafficking of women and children for commercial sexual exploitation through social mobilization and involvement of local communities, awareness generation programmes, generate public discourse through workshops/seminars and such events and any other innovative activity. b) To facilitate rescue of victims from the place of their exploitation and place them in safe custody. c) To provide rehabilitation services both immediate and long-term to the victims by providing basic amenities/needs such as shelter, food, clothing, medical treatment including counselling, legal aid and guidance and vocational training. d) To facilitate reintegration of the victims into the family and society at large. e) To facilitate repatriation of cross-border victims to their country of origin. What are the components of the scheme? The Scheme shall have the following main components: a) Prevention – This component includes: •  Formation and functioning of Community Vigilance Groups. • Formation and functioning of Balika (adolescent girls)/Balala (adolescent children) Sanghas. • Sensitization Workshops/Seminars for generating awareness among the masses related to the legal help available for the people in distress. • Awareness generation through mass media including kalajathas, street plays, pupettery or through any other art forms, preferably traditional. • Development and printing of awareness generation material such as pamphlets, leaflets and posters (in local language). b) Rescue - This component includes: •  Making provisions for the Information gathering through formation of network of Police, NGOs, Women’s Groups, Youth Groups, Panchayats, Hotels and tour operators etc., to gather information on traffickers, suspicious people and vulnerable families. • The scheme would provide for— Incentives to decoy customers/informers; Transportation cost of victim(s) from place of rescue to shelter home; • The scheme will provide food, shelter, toiletries, clothing, trauma care/counseling, medical aid etc. during the interim period between rescue and production before the concerned authorities. c) Rehabilitation – This component includes: •  Setting up of Protective and Rehabilitative (P&R) Home. • To provide basic amenities such food, clothing and other items of personal use. • To provide Doctor’s fee, cost of medicines, hospitalization, appropriate linkages to de -addiction centers. Since the victims of trafficking undergo immense psychological trauma, professional counseling services would be provided through a qualified clinical psychologist and psychiatrist. • As victims are the main witnesses against the trafficker/pimp/perpetrator, or to claim their right to property, marital rights, divorce, maintenance and custody of children, they will be provided with legal aid which would include court work and documentation relating to the victims court case. • Education to the rescued children will be provided under the scheme. As a large proportion of the rescued victims are children, they will need to be inducted into the formal or open school system, for which some expenditure on text-books, notebooks, stationary, school uniform and other incidental expenses may have to be incurred. •  Further in order to completely rehabilitate the victim it is necessary to provide alternate livelihood options. Therefore, support for vocational training is also provided. d) Re-integration - This component involves: • Restoring the victim to their family and community by formation of half-way homes. Half-Way Home is a Home within the community, where a group of victims, ready for reintegration, live and work out of this place. This is to facilitate smooth transition from the life in P&R Home to an independent living in the community. A Half-Way Home is for a group of victims who are gainfully employed and can live semi-independently with minimum supervision. This is a phased approach to re-integration into the community. e) Repatriation – • Repatriation is applicable to cross border victims of commercial sexual exploitation. • The scheme would provide for expenses incurred in fulfilling various formalities for obtaining repatriation order for the victim. • It includes the setting up of transit points at border checkpoints to provide food and other incidentals to the victim.

 

 

NATIONAL POLICY FOR THE EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN

As a follow up action to the commitments made by India during the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing during Sep. 1995, the Department has drafted a National Policy for the Empowerment of Women after nation-wide consultations to enhance the status of women in all walks of life on par with men and actualize the constitutional guarantee of equality without discrimination on grounds of sex. The goal of this Policy is to bring about the advancement, development and empowerment of women. Specifically, the objectives of this Policy include: a) Creating an environment through positive economic and social policies for full development of women to enable them to realize their full potential; b) The de-jure and de-facto enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedom by women on equal basis with men in all spheres - political, economic, social, cultural and civil; c) Equal access to participation and decision making of women in social, political and economic life of the nation; d) Equal access to women to health care, quality education at all levels, career and vocational guidance, employment, equal remuneration, occupational health and safety, social security and public office etc.; e) Strengthening legal systems aimed at elimination of all forms of discrimination against women; f) Changing societal attitudes and community practices by active participation and involvement of both men and women; g) Mainstreaming a gender perspective in the development process; h) Elimination of discrimination and all forms of violence against women and the girl child; and i) Building and strengthening partnerships with civil society, particularly women’s organizations. Achievements during the XI Five Year Plan The Eleventh Five Year Plan was aimed at inclusive development. Its vision was that every woman in the country should be able to develop to her full potential and share the benefits of economic growth and prosperity. Towards this end the approach adopted was to empower women and recognize their Agency thereby seeking to make them partners in their own development. This it sought to do by mainstreaming gender in all sectors as well as by undertaking targeted interventions. The Plan period saw the introduction of many new schemes and programmes targeted at particular groups or aimed at addressing specific issues. These included SABLA, for empowering adolescent girls, IGMSY for supporting poor women during the final stages of their maternity, Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Yojana for women farmers, a scheme for leadership training of Minority women, Ujjawala for combating trafficking and Dhanalakshmi to tackle the issue of declining sex ratio. Existing schemes were also modified to make them more effective and to plug identified gaps. Implementation of Legislations enacted just prior to the XI Plan like the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, and Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 was followed up with the States and a new legislation aimed at providing women a safe working environment, Protection Against Sexual Harassment at the Workplace Bill was introduced in Parliament. Several other policy decisions were made in the sector of women and children. Major amongst these was the launch of the National Mission for Empowerment of Women (NMEW) on March 8, 2010. The Mission will work for strengthening inter-sectoral convergence at the Central, State, District and lower levels of governance making it possible for women to know about and access all Government schemes and programmes. The National Mission Authority, supporting Committees and the National Resource Centre for Women have been established and have started functioning. The first pilot convergence project was launched in Pali district of Rajasthan in September, 2011 and similar pilots are planned in other States/UTs. The State Governments are also establishing parallel structures at the State level. 16 States/UTs have already established State Mission Authorities and 11 States are in the process of setting up of State Resource Centres for Women. The Mission stands testimony to the commitment of Government to the empowerment of women in the country. Another, landmark decision on which work has been initiated is the restructuring of the Rashtriya Mahila Kosh into a systemically important Non- Banking Finance Company with an enhanced corpus of Rs 500 crores. The restructured RMK will have a pan-India office network and in its new and expanded form it will be facilitating the financial inclusion of more than 2 lakh women from the disadvantaged sections of society on an annual basis towards the fifth year of its working. The Eleventh Five Year Plan mentioned Gender Budgeting and Gender Outcome assessment and underlined the importance of Gender Audits of public expenditure, programmes and policies at national, state and district levels. The Plan envisaged the strengthening of the Gender Budget Cells set up in the various Ministries and Departments. Towards this, in March 2007, the Ministry of Finance issued a charter on Gender Budget Cells (GBCs) outlining the composition and functions of the GBCs. While, the charter was an important step towards institutionalising Gender Budgeting within Government, the implementation of the charter remains a challenge. A scheme on Gender Budgeting was introduced in 2007 with a view to building capacity so that a gender perspective was retained at all levels of the planning, budget formulation and implementation processes. Both Central and State level officers have been trained under this scheme and as a direct consequence of these training efforts, a number of Ministries as well as State Governments have taken GB initiatives. Inclusion and mainstreaming of women also received special attention under programmes such as the MNREGA, the Right to Free & Compulsory Education, National Rural Health Mission, National Rural Livelihood Mission and National Skill Development Mission. Gender Budgeting initiatives also led to development of new schemes in supposedly gender neutral sectors like Department of Telecommunications and Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.