Empowerment should be meaningful

Customary celebration of International Women’s Day on March 8 witnessed a festive mood. Newspapers remained flooded with commentaries, opinion pieces and statements on women empowerment. The electronic media channels, be it radio or television stations, run live talk shows with ‘successful’ women on the occasion. Even social media users too commemorated the day by posting congratulatory messages to women folk.

Actually, issues confronting women are age-old concerns and have always been wooing attention of one and all. Their tales of plight always outnumber the stories of their experience with joy and success. Resultantly, women folk has always been at the receiving end and struggling to get a fair deal in the socio-economic set-up and also in the political arena.

   

This situation led to the launch of women empowerment campaign, which specifically aims at enhancing their position in the power structure of the society by enabling them to get rid of ‘second class citizen’ tag and move to the center stage. The steam of women’s empowerment programme is up particularly on the eve of International Women’s Day and over a period of time, it loses steam till the next year’s date.

Precisely, on the premise of being denied certain freedoms and opportunities in the past, women’s empowerment emerged as a new phrase in the vocabulary of gender literature. And it’s the empowerment which continues to be debated now and then. One of the good things of this empowerment porgramme is that gender budgeting became an integral part of government budgets.

Since 2005, the central government budget has a statement that lists out schemes meant specifically for women including those in which the entire provision is for women and also those where at least 30% of the money is meant for women. Many states have also embraced gender budgeting over the past decade.

India’s economy is returning to growth for the last three months with a substantial decrease in the rate of COVID-19 cases and deaths and the recovery will gather pace with improvement in consumer spending. Budget 2021-22 is expected to be an impetus for recovery for the vulnerable communities, especially women given the pandemic’s deep impact on their lives and livelihood.

During COVID crisis, women have suffered from high levels of job losses, the disproportionate workload of unpaid care work and in some cases, a greater incidence of domestic violence. The Gender Budget 2021-22 i.e. presented as part of the Union Budget has provided opportunities to focus on addressing some of the issues faced by women, which have been further exacerbated by the pandemic. Overall, the gender budget has gone up in absolute numbers to Rs.1,53,326.28 crores (2021-22 actuals)  i.e. ~4.3% of the total budget from 2020-21 budget estimates.

Notably, Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund Gita Gopinath, on Monday stated that  the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to roll back years of hard-won economic and social gains for women and as nations struggle to grow their economies, tapping into the huge potential of women is clearly a “win-win” for both women’s empowerment and inclusive global economic growth.

Now, let’s discuss the concept of women’s empowerment in the context of women in Kashmir, especially in the backdrop of their faceoff with the turmoil witnessed in the three decades. Women being the most vulnerable, account for the vast majority of those adversely affected by the turmoil in the valley. What exactly needs to be done to power them with empowerment?

In J&K women’s empowerment needs a tailor-made approach. The first thing while working on measures to empower women in this strife-ridden geographically remote region is to understand that initiatives taken for women’s empowerment in other parts of the country will not necessarily prove successful here. The issues confronting women folk are totally different than rest of the country.

There is need to focus on those areas of women’s lives where more can be done so that they are empowered to take greater financial, political and physical control of their lives. Before tailoring solutions to help women to achieve empowerment in these areas, one has to understand her position/situation in which she has been placed since 1988 when armed insurgency began here. It’s she who became the direct victim of all sorts of violence which took place.

Precisely, the impact of the armed conflict rendered their emotional strength into weakness and engulfed them into a constant state of depression. Frankly speaking, compensation, in whatever form is very low in comparison to the psychological and economic costs suffered by them during the years of turmoil.

Having deeper attachment with their families, Kashmiri womenfolk silently bore the brunt of violence directly as well as indirectly while caught in the twilight of Kashmir imbroglio. Whether a family member got killed or disappeared, it has been a continuous trauma for Kashmiri women to mourn for such incidents. Cases are in abundance where many such women are living with their painful memories and now toil hard to feed their family. And there are instances where they were forced to assume the headship, only to carry on with the burden of their families, mostly comprising of orphans.

One of the aftermaths of this turmoil has also been the ever-increasing number of widows. These widows are witnessing worst socio-economic conditions as their only bread-earners have been either killed or left brutally maimed or have mysteriously disappeared during the course of the bloody violence. Majority of the widows in the state are living a miserable life as the government and other organizations have not paid adequate attention to their problems. With the result, their problems have compounded alarmingly.

Among the most frustrated are the half widows. Until their husbands are proved dead, these women cannot inherit their property or come under the formal compensation policy, if any. Often these half widows are thrown out of their homes, leaving them to fend for themselves in a vulnerable environment around them.

While facing the brunt of the turmoil, stress related disorders have been taking toll of women. The worst part is that most of the women victims don’t have financial resources to undergo treatment.

Precisely, women here always bear the brunt of any disaster, whether natural, social or political. It is they who have to suffer the most and at the same time keep their homes intact by gathering confidence and strength. So, what we need today is that Kashmiri women should be empowered. When we talk of their empowerment, we need to do their segmentation based on their profile and accordingly tailor empowerment solutions.

For example, the skillful craftsmanship of Kashmiri artists has made Kashmiri handicrafts as prized possession over the years and has captured the hearts of people across the globe. Among the army of these skillful artisans, women constitute a substantial number who are well trained in the arts and crafts and contribute to its glory in a significant way. Here the women segment of artisans in the sector is lacking resources to organize their trade in a professional way. Being unorganized and left to the mercy of middlemen in the trade, they are forced to live in abject poverty.

A survey should be conducted to map these women artisans and segregated according to their specialties in the arts and crafts. They should be grouped in clusters through self-help groups. Special finance schemes on the pattern of artisan credit card should be introduced for them. The scheme should be women exclusive and should contain a scope of handholding them after they avail the finance facility.

In succinct, the women who have been ruined by the circumstances created during all these years of the turmoil should be identified, rehabilitated and provided all amenities of life.

Meanwhile, there is ugly side of women’s empowerment which surfaces in normal circumstances when it is being used as a firearm to dis-empower opposite gender. As incidents of misusing women-friendly laws galore, some vigilant law enforcers have been forced to state that the ‘society is being spoilt because of women’s empowerment and ego problems’.

So, in a global campaign when women’s empowerment is vehemently stressed upon, a close look is simultaneously needed at the ‘cheap attitude’ of those women who manipulate the empowerment laws in their favour to get the benefit of doubt. Empowerment should not give a free hand to women to accuse opposite gender on fake grounds. So, simultaneously what we need is a law in place to check the misuse of empowerment laws by women and punish those women who indulge in harassing others through fake complaints and court cases. This can not only rescue numerous innocent individuals  and their families who are the victims of fake allegations made by many women, but will also lead to a disciplined women’s empowerment.

(The views are of the author & not the institution he works for)

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