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            Women constitute almost half of the population in the world. But the hegemonic masculine ideology made them suffer a lot as they were denied equal opportunities in different parts of the world. The rise of feminist ideas has, however, led to the tremendous improvement of women’s condition through out the world in recent times. Access to education has been one of the most pressing demands of theses women’s rights movements. Women’s education in India has also been a major preoccupation of both the government and civil society as educated women can play a very important role in the development of the country.     

·                     India has world’s largest number of professionally qualified women.

·                     India has largest population of working women in the world.

·                     India has more number of doctors, surgeons, scientists, professors than the US.

            Domestic violence is controlling behaviour and includes all kinds of physical, sexual, economic, psychological and emotional abuse within all kinds of intimate relationships. The perpetrators of domestic violence or abuse are usually men and the victims or survivors are usually women and children that they know. It includes:

• Punching and slapping.

• Kicking and hair pulling.

• Biting and pinching.

• Pushing and shoving.

• Being forced to have sex.

• Being beaten or cut with other objects.

• Disrespect, neglect and emotional blackmail.

• Verbal abuse and swearing.

• Being prevented from going out or seeing people – being isolated.

The following are the forms of Domestic Violence:

1.      Physical Abuse

2.      Sexual Abuse

3.      Psychological Abuse

4.      Emotional Abuse

5.      Financial Abuse

            Physical abuse is the most visible form of abuse and most likely (with sexual abuse) to give rise to criminal charges. Injuries include black eyes, cut lips, bruising, fractures, deafness, blindness, internal bleeding, missing teeth, persistent ill health, miscarriages, and injuries to a foetus and death. Injury sites are often concealed by clothing or hair. It can include slaps, shoves, pushing, being thrown across the room or down the stairs, kicking, stamping, strangulation, burns and scalds, being attacked with weapons such as knives, household objects, firearms etc internally as well as externally.

            Sexual Abuse in an abusive relationship is another form of violence, control and degradation. It includes rape, sexual assaults (including with implements),enforced prostitution, enforced sexual practices including being forced to watch or engage in pornography.

            Psychological abuse examples include “Jeckyll and Hyde” behaviour, preventing contact with friends and families, constant belittling and humiliating things being said, claims that children will be removed if anyone is told of abuse, controlling behaviours, deliberately enforcing dependency, constant statements that the victim is mentally ill etc.

            Emotional abuse is an attack on victims’ personality and well being and is often described as worse than physical violence. It may be referred to as “mind-games”. It frequently amounts to the abuser assuming a tight and unhealthy control of all members of the family, which may become increasingly isolated in the community.

            Examples include threats of violence to all members of family, constant criticism of the victim saying she is ugly, ignorant or worthless, using the children as ammunition, family life and mood being dictated by abuser (abuser-centric) continual questioning, humiliation in public, playing on community and cultural fears, threats to have the children removed, threats to kill or have deported, threat that the abuser will commit suicide, threats and actual violence to family pets etc.

            Financial Abuse is essentially the deprivation of and / or the control of money whether earned or benefits.

            An abuser may refuse to pay bills or prevent the victim from having any control over the family finances. The abuser may steal money belonging to the victim or children. Essential services such as gas and electricity may be cut off. The mother may be forced to support the children solely on what she can earn without assistance or child benefit if this is claimed by the abuser. An abuser may deliberately spend money on himself or sell the woman’s possessions and family furniture.

·        One crime against women every three minutes

·        One rape every 29 minutes

·        One dowry death case every 77 minutes

·        One case of cruelty by husband and relatives every nine minutes

·        Once suicide every 4 hours

Source: National Crime Records Bureau

 

·         India has exceptionally high rates of child malnutrition, because tradition in India requires that women eat last and least throughout their lives, even when pregnant and lactating. Malnourished women give birth to malnourished children, perpetuating the cycle.

·         Females receive less health care than males. Many women die in childbirth of easily prevented complications. Working conditions and environmental pollution further impairs women’s health.

·         Families are far less likely to educate girls than boys, and far more likely to pull them out of school, either to help out at home or from fear of violence.

·         Women work longer hours and their work is more arduous than men’s, yet their work is unrecognized. Men report that “women, like children, eat and do nothing.” Technological progress in agriculture has had a negative impact on women.

·         In women’s primary employment sector – agriculture – extension services overlook women.

·         In recent years, there has been an alarming rise in atrocities against women in India, in terms of rapes, assaults and dowry-related murders. Fear of violence suppresses the aspirations of all women. Female infanticide and sex-selective abortions are additional forms of violence that reflect the devaluing of females in Indian society.

·         While women are guaranteed equality under the constitution, legal protection has little effect in the face of prevailing patriarchal traditions. Women lack power to decide who they will marry, and are often married off as children. Legal loopholes are used to deny women inheritance rights.

            India has a long history of activism for women’s welfare and rights, which has increasingly focused on women’s economic rights. A range of government programs have been launched to increase economic opportunity for women, although there appear to be no existing programs to address the cultural and traditional discrimination against women that leads to her abject conditions.

Overall, a crime against women is committed every three minutes in India, according to India’s National Crime Records Bureau. Despite the scale of the problem, there had been no specific legislation to deal with actual abuse or the threat of abuse at home. Domestic violence, under the new law, includes “actual abuse or the threat of abuse whether physical, sexual, emotional or economic,” a statement from the federal ministry of women and child development said.

            “We have been trying for long to protect women from domestic violence. In India alone, around 70% of women are victim of these violent acts in one or the other form,” junior minister for women and child development Renuka Chowdhury told the Press Trust of India news agency. They say a bill alone will not help in preventing domestic abuse; what is needed is a change in mind sets.

In January 1992, the National Commission for Women (NCW), was set up as a statutory body under the National Commission for Women Act, 1990 ( Act No. 20 of 1990 of Govt.of India ) to review the constitutional and legal safeguards for women; recommend remedial legislative measures, facilitate redressal of grievances and advise the Government on all policy matters affecting women.

            There are so many government and non-government organizations are working for the benefits of women. Both Central and State governments are continuing so many programmes for the development of women in the country.

           
                                                                                                                 - Jawaharlal Nehru

According to last census held in 2001, the percentage of female literacy in the country is 54.16%. The literacy rate in the country has increased from 18.33% in 1951 to 65.38% as per 2001 census. The female literacy rate has also increased from 8.86% in 1951 to 54.16%. It is noticed that the female literacy rate during the period 1991-2001 increased by 14.87% whereas male literacy rate rose by 11.72%. Hence the female literacy rate actually increased by 3.15% more compared to male literacy rate.

Historically, a variety of factors have been found to be responsible for poor female literate rate, viz.

·         Gender based inequality.

·         Social discrimination and economic exploitation.

·         Occupation of girl child in domestic chores.

·         Low enrolment of girls in schools.

·         Low retention rate and high dropout rate.

1.      National Literacy Mission for imparting functional literacy

2.      Universalisation for Elementary Education

3.      Non-Formal Education

Although in the Vedic period women had access to education in India, they had gradually lost this right. However, in the British period there was revival of interest in women’s education in India. During this period, various socio religious movements led by eminent persons like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar emphasized on women’s education in India. Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, Periyar and Baba Saheb Ambedkar were leaders of the lower castes in India who took various initiatives to make education available to the women of India. However women’s education got a fillip after the country got independence in 1947 and the government has taken various measures to provide education to all Indian women. As a result women’s literacy rate has grown over the three decades and the growth of female literacy has in fact been higher than that of male literacy rate. While in 1971 only 22% of Indian women were literate, by the end of 2001 54.16% female were literate. The growth of female literacy rate is 14.87% as compared to 11.72 % of that of male literacy rate.

 

Women’s education in India plays a very important role in the overall development of the country. It not only helps in the development of half of the human resources, but in improving the quality of life at home and outside. Educated women not only tend to promote education of their girl children, but also can provide better guidance to all their children. Moreover educated women can also help in the reduction of infant mortality rate and growth of the population.

Gender discrimination still persists in India and lot more needs to be done in the field of women’s education in India. The gap in the male-female literacy rate is just a simple indicator. While the male literary rate is more than 75% according to the 2001 census, the female literacy rate is just 54.16%. Prevailing prejudices, low enrollment of girl child in the schools, engagements of girl children in domestic works and high drop out rate are major obstacles in the path of making all Indian women educated.

            According to the Women and Child Development study, 45 percent of Indian women are slapped, kicked or beaten by their husbands. India also had the highest rate of violence during pregnancy. Of the women reporting violence, 50 percent were kicked, beaten or hit when pregnant. About 74.8 percent of the women who reported violence have attempted to commit suicide. It shows the importance of education. Educated woman has more strength and power to face the challenges when compared to uneducated woman.

            Kumud Sharma of the Centre for Women’s Development Studies in New Delhi traced the correlation between education and domestic violence to patriarchal attitudes. “Educated women are aware of their rights,” she said. “They are no longer willing to follow commands blindly. When they ask questions, it causes conflicts, which, in turn, leads to violence. In many Indian states, working women are asked to hand over their paycheck to the husband and have no control over their finances. So, if they stop doing so or start asserting their right, there is bound to be friction.”

            It is necessary to establish some more colleges and universities in India.  The number of Residential Schools for SC/ST and BC’s is not sufficient today. So, increase the number of these schools in the both rural and urban areas. Today’s children are tomorrow’s citizens. Take care about future generation. Then only India will become developed country in the future.

            Now we are living in the modern and technological world. Women are also entering in all the fields like men for doing job. Educated women have better opportunity compared to uneducated women in the society. They are facing so many problems in the society. With the help of education and law and order it is easy to escape from those problems. So it is necessary to educate all types of women in the society. Education gives strength, wealth, health and power to the individual.

 According to Swami Vivekandanda:

            The plight of women in medieval India and at the starting of modern India can be summed up in the words of great poet Rabindranath Tagore:

1.      National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (2001). The National Reading Panel: Reports of the Subgroups.

 

2.      UNESCO Institute for Statistics: Literacy rates, youth (15-24) and adult (15+), by region and gender (September 2006 Assessment).

 

3.   Child and Women Development Report, (2006), Ministry of Women and Child  

      Development, Government of India, New Delhi.

 

4.    National Family Health Survey, (2006), Government of India, New Delhi.

 

5.    National Crime Records Bureau, (2007), Government of India, New Delhi.

 

6.   Census of India, (2001), Government of India, New Delhi.

 

 

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