Surabhi Singh reviews the state of women in Rajastan arguing that the state needs to proactively work to ensure even basic human rights are accessible.

India has made considerable progress in social and economic development in recent decades, which is clearly visible from its improved social indicators of life expectancy, infant mortality and literacy rate. However, improvement in women’s status is lagging far behind than other accomplishment.

Women in India live under the strain by various forms of oppression. These are evident from social, cultural and religious pressure in family, law, politics, government programmes, information services and education. These pressures adversely affect women’s access to resources.

Though the constitution of India and Government legislation grant equal rights in all respects to both men and women, but unfortunately, the reality is that women are often treated as second-class citizens. There are numerous statistics that show the government’s failure to include women in power structure and provide the benefits of their democratic system.

Some of big indicators in this concern are sex ratio and literacy rate. According to census 2001, these are 933 and 54.16 respectively. It becomes more critical, when we see the same indicators in different states, especially in Rajasthan where overall sex ratio for 0-6 years is 909 (Demography- Total Populations and Sex Ratio, Census of India, New Delhi, 2001) along with the much lower literacy rate, i.e. 44% (Education-Literacy rate, Gross Enrolment Ratio and Teacher Pupil Ratio- Ministry of HRD. Selected Educational Statistics, 2001).

However, the government has the following obligation when it comes to implementing their rights provided to ensure equal status-

(i)                  Respect: - It requires government to refrain from interfering directly and indirectly with the enjoyment of their rights.

(ii)                Protect: - It requires government to prevent their parties such as corporation, from interfering in any way with the enjoyment of their rights.

(iii)               Fulfill: - It requires government to adopt the necessary measures to achieve the full realization of their rights (http://cesr.org)

But the sex ratio, literacy rate and median age i.e. 15.1 years in the state, reveal the failure of government to meet above requirements. In this concern, traditional practices have become a recognized issue concerning the status and human rights of women and female children (Fact Sheet no. 23, Harmful Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women & Children, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, Switzerland). In this context only; here it refers to the existence of culturally sanctioned practices in Rajasthan under which a girl is denied to enjoy her rights.

(A) Child Marriage- In Rajasthan, child marriages remain so popular that virtually every city, town and villages have a holiday atmosphere ahead of the day set up by astrologers for the annual ‘Akha Teej’ festival. Although the tradition requires, the stay of bride with her family after getting married and wait when another ceremony known as ‘Gauna’ would mark her fitness to join her husband’s family.

But not all groom’s families are prepared to wait for puberty. In many cases, their husband’s families take these girls as young as six or seven years away to begin work as servants or field hands. “With the addition of a girl to the household, the in-laws get a laborer, someone who’ll feed the cattle and clear the house, a servant who come free of cost” said Ratan Katyani, a social worker in the Rajasthan city of Jaipur.

A survey of more than 5,000 women conducted by the national government in 1993 showed that 56 % had married before they were 15. Of those, 3% married before they were 5 and 14% before they were 10. Large families and poor health of children and mothers is the upcoming result. The survey shows that of every 1,000 births, 73 children died in infancy and 103 under the age of 5. 63% of children under 4 were found severely undernourished (Burns, J.F., Child Marriages, Though illegal, Persist in India in The New York Times: On the web, May 11,1998).

Apart from these, differences between the age of marriage for men and women significantly affect the power balance between spouses and the closeness of their partnership. The relative lack of power with adolescent girls is often linked to violence in marriage, which is associated with unwanted pregnancy and other complications. They have very little ability to leave abusive partners and many live in isolation with little chance of secured or legal support.

Besides, they often cannot seek health care without the permission of their husband or other family members, as they are not able to pay for health care independently. Husband and families also apply considerable pressure on young wives to have a child soon after marriage, increasing their risk of maternal death.

Health researchers (Dennerstein, Astbury & Morse: Psychological and Mental Health Aspects of Women’s Health, Geneva, WHO, 1993; Gulcur, Leyla: Evaluating the Role of Gender Inequalities and Rights Violation in Women’s Mental Health, Health and Human Rights Journal, 2000) have documented that child marriage, along with little or no education, economic dependence, denial of decision making power, inequality within the home and sexual exploitation affect maternal health seriously.

Apart from serious health consequences, child marriage also takes away the educational opportunities, which affects employment and income generation, thus ‘sowing the seeds of lifetime dependency’.

Further, it not only contributes to various social problems but also violates their right. Rights denied by this custom is

v     The right to be protected from all forms of physical and mental violence, injury or abuse (Article19) and from all forms of sexual exploitation (Article34)

v      The right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health (Article24).

v     The right to educational and vocational information and guidance (Article28).

v     The right to rest and leisure and to participate freely in cultural life (Article31).

v     The right to not to be separated from their parents against their will (Article9).

v     The right to protection from all forms of exploitation affects any aspect of the child’s welfare (Article36).

Violation of above rights devalues them in society and girls facing these practices are also victims of son preferential treatment.

(B) Son Preference- The economics of son preference play a major role in the low valuation and neglect of female children. The son is considered to be family pillar who ensures continuity and protection of the family property. They provide the world force and bring in a bride-“an extra pair of hands”.

Sons are the source of family income. They are also the interpreters of religious teachings and performers of rituals, especially on the death of parents. The effect of this practice on women is the internalization of the low value accorded to them by society, which results in nutritional deficiency.

Behavioral practices related to food intake did not satisfy their dietary needs, which is one of the major components of Right to Food (http://cesr.org/food). As Karlekar (Karlekar, Malavika: The Girl Child in India; Does She Have any Rights? Canadian Women Studies, March:1995) observes in her study “The girl child in India”: “Usually girls and women eat less than men and boys and have their meal after they had finished eating. Greater mobility outside the home provides boys the opportunity to eat sweets and fruit from sewed-up pocket money given to buy articles for food consumption”.

Beside it, Right to Education (http://academic.udayton.edu/health/07humanrights/health.htm) is also hampered by this practice, as parents do not see the benefits of girl’s education because girls are given away in marriage to serve the husband’s family. So sons are given priority.

Further, according to Article 31, paragraph 1, of the convention on the Rights of the child, state parties recognize “the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities”. However, from an early age, girls from rural and poor urban homes are burdened with domestic tasks and child rearing, which abstain them to play.

Thus, these practices deny the girl child from attaining good health, education, recreation, economic opportunity and the right to choose her partner and violates her Constitutional rights under Articles 26, 12, 19, 24, 27, and 28 of the Convention on the Right of the Child (http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com).

(C) Naata Pratha- It’s a kind of widow remarriage, where traditionally, the father of widow is given a certain ‘negotiable price’ by the groom, the widow have to go with the suitors and be married, no matter whether she knew the suitors or not. Her father’s decision is final. Besides, these women are seen as oppressed section of the society.

In today’s context, this culturally sanctioned practice leads to the violation of the Right to “Adequate standard of living” (http://cesr.org/adequate), protected by Article 11 in the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and Article 25 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Under above circumstances, the girl child has no support. These practices seriously affect the ability of women to enjoy their rights or to gain justice of their rights. So far as efforts to eradicate ill practices are concerned, no doubt that our Parliament adopted the Child Marriage Restrain Act along with other preventive measures, but the question lies here, in spite of all the high profile attention on women’s issues, why many remain unresolved.

In my eyes, as long as the government doesn’t acknowledge those belief systems working against girls, remedial process will not take-off. Effort to eradicate evil practices has been barely touch, not even the fringe of these issues. So the dire need is to appeal people’s conscience to bring about the desired result.
Surabhi Singh is a PhD student at Banasthali Vidyapith and works as a Project Officer in Women Studies Centre at Banasthali Vidyapith
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Posted by collective at June 14, 2006 08:48 PM