" Women's Rights and Gender Based Violence in India ---Issues and Challenges " (original) (raw)

Denial of women's rights means denial of human rights of half of humanity. Gender based violence is one of the worst forms of violation of woman's basic human rights. Gender Violence is highly pervasive and the increasing number of cases reported confirms this point. The growing concern of the women's movement has placed violence against women (VAW) on the global agenda. At the same time efforts are being made by various groups to eliminate VAW by not only reaching out to the victims but also addressing violence prevention. The present paper discusses women's rights and the nature of gender based violence in India and shares a model of preventing violence by generating community participation. Women's Rights 1974 is a landmark year in the history of women's movement in India. " Towards Equality —Report on the Committee for Status of Women in India (CSWI) " was released in this year which gave a comprehensive view of the status of women in independent India. The report revealed startling facts which showed that even after 25 years of the country's Independence, women continued to be without any rights despite the many legislative enactments in their favour—they suffered in terms of education, health, political decision making, and careers. Six decades later we in India still are engaged in improving the status of women in the aforesaid areas—education etc…It is not that the Indian government is not gender sensitive, in fact we have one of the most gender sensitive Constitutions framed way back in 1949. We have gender sensitive laws, ratified CEDAW (1993), schemes, programmes and a National policy on women's empowerment. Despite all this the national sex ratio continues to be adversely biased against women who are excluded from benefits of basic human rights and development. International Scenario: Violation of women's rights is not one country specific but is found prevalent world over with variations in nature of violation. Though it is unfortunate that even in the 21 st century we have to propagate women's rights but the fact is that women all over the world have fought for and continue to fight for equality, dignity and freedom. The UN Document Women (Women 1991) lists at least six areas of common concern to women all over the world. These include legal literacy, health, education, work, politics and violence. The only difference is that while in the developed world gender discrimination takes the form of inequality in employment opportunities and in wages, in the developing countries the discrimination is more broad based ranging from not only in employment

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