Gender Issues

GENDER ISSUES

Gender issues include all aspects and concerns related to women’s and men’s lives and situations in society, the way they interrelate, their differences in access to and use of resources, their activities, and how they react to changes, interventions and policies. As per the Global Gender Gap Index 2017, India ranked 108th out of 144 countries.

Gender-related issues

1. Gender discrimination:

Gender discrimination in India means health, education, economic and political discrimination between men and women. India is still male-dominated, where women are often seen as subordinate and inferior to men. Even though women are guaranteed equality under the Constitution, legal protection has a limited effect where patriarchal traditions prevail.

2. Female Infanticide and female feticide:

Female Infanticide is the act of killing a female child, either newborn or within the first few years of life. It could be actively murdering through suffocation, poisoning, etc. Female Feticide is the act of aborting a baby because of the female gender. Sex-selective abortion is a massive problem in India.

3. Violence against women:

Violence means the use of physical force on someone with the intention to hurt, damage, or kill the person. Violence against women is a worldwide yet hidden problem. It is counted as crimes under the Indian Penal Code are rape, kidnapping and abduction, torture physically and mentally, dowry deaths, wife battering, sexual harassment, molestation, rape, acid attacks, honour killing, etc. The cases of violence against women are increasing day by day and becoming too broad.

4. Discrimination in Female education:

Since the introduction of the new law in 2010, education is free for every child between the ages of 6 to 14 years old; however, it is not compulsory; this means the children have the right to education but not the obligation to go. A lot of girls do not go to school because their parents would rather send their sons, who will be the future them. The girls have to help at home with housework.

5. Gender Discrimination in Healthcare Sector:

Gender discrimination is evident in the healthcare sector as well. The male child gets all the nutrition and choicest foods while the female child gets whatever is left behind. One of the main reasons for the high incidences of difficult births and anaemia in women is the poor quality of the food that a girl always gets either in her paternal home or in her in-laws.

FOLLOWING BILLS AND LATEST AMENDMENTS

1. Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929

2. The Hindu Succession Act, 1956

3. Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961

4. Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986

5. The Pre-conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994

6. Sexual Harassment Bill, 2012

7. The Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2013