The number of women in India is 48.20%, while the number of men is 51.80%. They make up half of the people in India. Over the last few thousand years, there have been many big changes in how women are treated in India. From having the same rights as men in ancient times to having few rights during the Middle Ages to having many reformers work for equal rights, the past of women in India has been full of ups and downs. Women have held important jobs in modern India, such as President, Prime Minister, Speaker of the Lok Sabha, and Leader of the Opposition. But women in India still have to deal with horrible things like being raped, having acid thrown at them, being killed for a dowry, and young girls being made to work as prostitutes.
Some groups in India have stopped doing things like Sati, Jauhar, and Devadasi because they are against the law. But in some rural parts of India, people still do some of these things. Child marriage is still popular in rural India, even though it is against the law.
Concern has always been high about the situation of women in India. Women in India have never had the same rights and chances as men, and this has been the case for hundreds of years. Even though Indian society respects women because they are our moms and sisters, the patriarchal nature of Indian society has made it hard for women to be free and safe. From the time they are born until they die, Indian women still face abuse. While they are still in the womb, they face the constant threat of feticide. After they are born, they face different kinds of violence and harassment at different times of their lives, from their parents to their husbands to members of the public to their employers.
Even though the Constitution of India promises all Indian women equality (Article 14), no discrimination by the state (Article 15(1)), equal opportunities (Article 16), and equal pay for equal work (Article 39(d)), this situation still exists. Also, it lets the government make special provisions for women and children (Article 15(3)), forbids practises that hurt women’s dignity (Article 51(A)(e), and lets the government make provisions for fair and humane working conditions and maternity leave (Article 42).
Despite all of India’s civil and legal protections, there are still a lot of crimes and wrongdoings going on. In a country where religious and cultural practises hold women in high regard and where many goddesses are based on women, it is ironic that crimes against women are on the rise. Only 9.2% of families in India were led by women in 1992-1993, according to statistics. But about 35% of the families that were below the poverty line were led by women.
Every day, women from all walks of life, including single women, young girls, and moms, are attacked.
abused and treated badly. Hunters are now mostly in the streets, on public transportation, and in public areas. While those who have already been caught cry in quiet or with disdain, the rest fight for a basic way to live. On the streets, there is a silent war going on. Girls in high school and college use books as a shield, while other women wear full-covering clothes to protect their bodies and avoid even a single glance.
We don’t have to look at numbers to face the awful truth. Every day, we see news stories about women in India being raped, beaten, or killed. We all know this is true. After Nirbhaya was killed by gangrape, people took to the streets of Delhi to protest the weak position of women in India. People talk about the night they will never forget: the night Nirbhaya died. There are candlelight marches, articles that look at the patriarchal and sexist customs of our country, and a social media awakening.
Before we talk about the different types of crimes against women and what causes them, let’s take a quick look at the Women’s Movement in India.
In India, women’s rights movement picked up speed in the late 1970s. The Mathura rape case was one of the first things that pulled women’s groups together on a national level. In 1979 and 1980, protests took place all over the country because cops who were accused of raping a young girl in a police station were found not guilty. The national media gave a lot of attention to the protests, which drove the government to change the Evidence Act, the Criminal Procedure Code, and the Indian Penal Code. They also made custodial rape a new crime. Activist women also came together over things like female abortion, gender bias, women’s health, women’s safety, and women’s education.
Since drunkenness is often linked to violence against women in India, women’s groups in Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, and other states have started campaigns against drinking. Many Indian Muslim women have criticised the triple talaq system and questioned how fundamental leaders understand women’s rights under Shariat law.
In the 1990s, funding from foreign donor agencies made it possible for new NGOs focused on women to start up. Self-help groups and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) like the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) have done a lot to improve women’s rights in India. Many women, like Medha Patkar of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, have taken the lead in local organisations.
2001 was named the Year of Women’s Empowerment (Swashakti) by the Indian government. In 2001, the National Policy for Empowering Women was put into place. Under this policy, different policies and schemes were put in place to give women more power. Under this policy, the policies that were already in place to help women were recently combined so that they work better together.
Even so, it’s an unsaid truth that women in India have to go through a lot of hard things. Women may be the victims of the most dangerous crimes against humanity, which put their safety and security at risk. Let’s discuss some crimes against women.
Constitutional protections for Indian women
• Article 14:
It makes sure that everyone in India has the same rights before the law and gets the same security from the law.
• Article 15:
It says that you can’t treat people differently because of their religion, race, caste, sex, or where they were born. Article 15(3) says that the state can make special rules to help women and children.
• Article 16:
All people should have the same chances when it comes to getting a job. No person can be turned down for a job because of their religion, race, caste, sex, ancestry, place of birth, or where they live.
• Article 39:
Article 39(a) says that all people must have a good way to make a living.
Article 39 (b) says that men and women should get the same pay for the same work.
Article 39(c) has rules to protect the health and strength of workers, both men and women, and to make sure that young children aren’t hurt.
• Article 42:
It promises fair and humane working conditions and time off for moms who are having babies.
Article 42 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is in line with Articles 23 and 25.
Article 325 and Article 326:
They secure political equality, the right to take part in political activities on an equal basis, and the right to vote.
• Article 243 (D):
It gives women a chance to run for office in every panchayat poll.
It has made this rule apply to people who are running for office.
The different problems women face and how to fix them
Violence against Women
• A WHO report says that one in three women and girls will experience physical or sexual violence in their lives. Most of the time, this will come from someone they live with.
• According to statistics from the NCRB, the most crimes against women in India in 2017 were committed by a husband or a member of his family.
• The safety and security of women in India is a top concern for the government, which has taken many steps over the years to deal with this problem.
• Statistic:
One in three women and girls are physically or sexually abused at some point in their lives, most often by someone they live with.
Only 52% of women who are married or in a relationship are free to choose their own sexual partners, birth control, and health care.
Nearly 750 million women and girls who are still alive today were married before they turned 18. Another 200 million women and girls have had female genital cutting, or FGM.
In 2012, one in two women who died were killed by their partners or family, but only one in twenty men were killed in the same way.
71% of all victims of human trafficking around the world are women and girls, and 3 out of 4 of these women and girls are sexually abused.
According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), 30% of Indian women between the ages of 15 and 49 have been physically hurt since they were 15. The study also says that 6% of women in the same age group have been sexually abused at least once in their lives.
Forms of violence
They start with the practise of sex-selective abortion and infanticide and continue through adolescence and adulthood with high rates of female infant mortality, child marriage, teen pregnancy, lower wages for women, unsafe workplaces, domestic violence, maternal death, sexual assault, and neglect of elderly women.
• Domestic abuse
Domestic violence is when one person in a close relationship like dating, marriage, living together, or being related to someone else hurts the other person.
Domestic abuse is also called battering, family violence, abuse in love relationships, and intimate partner violence (IPV).
Abuse can be physical, mental, verbal, financial, sexual, or other kinds of harm. It can also be subtle, forceful, or violent.
• Killings
Female murder and abortion based on the gender of the baby
Female infanticide is the choice to kill a baby girl or to have an abortion on a girl foetus.
o In India, it’s better to have a son because they can protect the family in old age and do rituals for their parents and elders who have died.
o On the other hand, girls are seen as a social and financial burden.
Dowry is dead
o A dowry death is when a married woman is killed or kills herself because of a fight over her wealth.
o Sometimes husbands and in-laws try to get a bigger gift by constantly harassing and torturing the wife, which can lead to the wife killing herself.
Honour killings
o An honour killing is when a family member is killed because they were thought to have brought shame and dishonour on the family.
o Some things that can lead to an honour killing are refusing an arranged marriage, committing adultery, picking a partner that the family doesn’t like, or being raped.
o In some parts of India, village caste councils called khap panchayats often sentence people to death if they don’t follow their rules about caste or gotra.
Accusations of witchcraft and the deaths that followed
Witchcraft is the use of what the person doing it thinks are magical skills and abilities, like spells, incantations, and magical routines.
o Women accused of being witches are still killed in India. Most likely to be killed are poor women, widows, and women from lower classes.
• Sexual abuse, assault, or rape
One of the most popular types of crime in India is rape.
The National Crime Records Bureau says that in India, a woman is raped every 20 minutes.
• Marital Crimes
Marital rape
o In India, it is not illegal to rape your spouse.
India is one of fifty countries that haven’t made it illegal to rape your spouse yet.
• Marriage by Force
Girls are at risk of being pushed into marriage at a young age because they are both children and girls, which makes them even more vulnerable.
Child brides often don’t know what marriage is and what it means for them.
Why the number of crimes against women in India is going up
• Gender roles and relationships
Men’s willingness to hold racist, patriarchal, and sexually hostile views
Social norms about gender and sexuality that encourage violence
Men have more power in relationships and families than women do.
Contexts and cultures that are sexist and encourage violence
• Violence is linked to social values and practises
Not enough help for domestic violence
Violence in the neighbourhood
Having been a victim of domestic abuse as a child (especially as a boy)
• Having access to tools and help systems
Having a low socioeconomic position, being poor, and not having a job
Not having enough friends and social wealth
Characteristics of a person
Abuse of alcohol and drugs
Separation and other things that happened
• No fear of the law: There are many laws in place, such as those about sexual harassment at work and Vishakha rules. Unfortunately, these rules have not protected women or punished the people who broke them. Even the law has many holes. For example, the Sexual harassment at work act says that companies have to file a yearly report, but there isn’t any clear information about the format or filing process.
• Lack of responsibility and conviction: Crimes against women are getting worse because the people in charge of law and order don’t have to answer for their actions and the people who do wrong don’t get caught. Because there isn’t a centralised way to collect data on how women are harassed, it’s hard to find trends in how women are harassed, which leads to bad law enforcement.
• Patriarchy: The status of women hasn’t changed much, even with more schooling and government programmes like Beto Bachao Beti Padao. People aren’t getting rid of their old ways of thinking. Domestic abuse and honour killings are on the rise because more women are speaking up and challenging the patriarchal way of thinking.
• Police don’t do their jobs well, and people break the law because the police don’t care. More crimes against women happen when the police take too long or can’t catch the criminals. The way the state police handle rules against sexual crime is not good. Many stories have come out about cops mistreating women.
• Lack of public safety: Most women aren’t safe when they’re not at home. Many streets aren’t well lit, and there aren’t enough bathrooms for women. Many people in India think that women who drink, smoke, or go to pubs are ethically loose, and village clan councils have blamed a rise in rapes on women who talk on cell phones and go to the bazaar.
• More reporting: A new report shows that the number of sexual offences has gone up by 12%. Since women are less shy and have more education, they are more likely to report crimes. As the #MeToo movement showed, more women are speaking up. This has led to more cases being recorded, as the NCRB report shows.
• A slow court system: India’s courts move at a terribly slow pace because there aren’t enough judges. There are about 15 judges for every million people in the country. This slows down the process of justice. The Indian legal system hasn’t done enough to find, prosecute, and punish the people who did this, and it hasn’t done enough to help the victims.
• Customs and traditional ways of doing things:
Female genital mutilation can cause death, infertility, and long-term mental stress, as well as more physical pain.
Acid attacks have become a cheap and easy way to hurt and sometimes kill women and girls for a variety of reasons, such as family fights, not being able to pay alimony demands, or not wanting to get married.
Killing in the name of family honour: In some countries, like Bangladesh, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Turkey, and India, women are killed to protect the honour of the family. This can be because they are accused of adultery, having a relationship with a man before they are married (with or without sexual relations), being raped, or falling in love with someone the family doesn’t like, which gives a man in the family a reason to kill the woman.
Early marriages: Whether the girl agrees or not, early marriage is a form of abuse because it hurts the health and freedom of millions of girls.
• Judiciary and law enforcement: A legal system and law enforcement system that is uncaring, ineffective, corrupt, and doesn’t answer to anyone doesn’t work to stop different kinds of crime.
• Sociocultural issues that hurt women: Gender stereotypes haven’t changed much over time.
The most important things for women to do have been to get married and have children.
Women must get married because being single, split, or divorced is seen as a bad thing.
In Indian marriages, dowry is still a common practise.
Legal Provisions:
• POCSO: The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act was made to protect children.
This is one of the first rules that doesn’t favour either men or women.
• IPC: The Indian Penal Code (IPC) has many strict rules on its own. After the Nirbhaya case, the Justice Verma committee made changes to the code in 2013 based on their suggestions.
The changes to the code have made it even stricter.
• POSH Act: The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act (POSH Act) was passed in 2013. It is a complete law that makes sure every woman at work is safe, secure, and able to do her job without being sexually harassed.
• Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act of 2005
• The Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961
• Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 • Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986
• The government has also taken a number of steps to make sure women and girls are safe. Here are some of those steps:
Nirbhaya Fund for projects that keep women safe and secure
Under the One-Stop Centre Scheme, women who have been affected by violence in both private and public places will get all the help and support they need under one roof.
According to the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2018, the police have an online tool called “Investigation Tracking System for Sexual Offences” that helps them keep track of investigations that are time-bound.
The National Database on Sexual Offenders (NDSO) will help law enforcement departments across the country find and track sexual offenders.
MHA has set up a Women Safety Division to keep track of all the different safety projects for women.
Suggestions:
• Gender sensitization: Boys and girls should be taught from a very young age about gender equality and women’s rights. This will help change the way the next generation thinks.
Parents and children should also have a bond of respect and authority in their homes.
Home should be a safe place for women. When women are treated well at home, children also learn how important it is to treat women well. Parents can’t be different with their sons and girls.
• Stop the shame: The shame that comes with being a victim of abuse should be taken away by bringing the community together through outreach programmes.
Encouraging and adopting family-centered practises that make sure girls and boys have similar access to high-quality education and give them the chance to finish school and make educational choices.
• Legal literacy: Camps should be held regularly and in a planned way at the level of the local community.
Zero FIR should be made known to people.
• Getting the right help
Each district will have a special court with a woman judge and magistrate to handle cases of domestic abuse.
The government should make sure that the rules are being followed correctly.
Police should be taught and made aware of how to treat women in trouble with respect and courtesy.
• Others: The media should be used to educate leaders and the public about violence so that people will have a better view of women and women who have been hurt by violence.
Make it easier to do study to evaluate what works to stop partner violence.
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Education: According to the 2011 census of India, the rate of female literacy in rural areas has gone up from 46.13 percent in 2001 to 58.75 percent in 2011. However, rural women still have fewer educational opportunities than men. The literacy rate for men is 82.14%, while the literacy rate for women is 65.46%. This is a gap of 16.95 percent between the male and female literacy rates.
• Estimates show that only one out of every 100 girls in rural India makes it to class 12, and almost 40% of girls drop out of school before they even reach the fifth grade.
• At the elementary level, 94.32% of girls are enrolled in school, while only 89.28% of boys are. At the secondary level, 81.32% of girls are enrolled, while only 78% of boys are. At the higher secondary level, 59.7% of girls are enrolled, while only 57.54% of boys are.
• Because of the Swachh Bharat Mission, about 14 lakh schools now have working toilets for girls, which is 4.17 percentage points more than in 2013-14. In 2018-19, 25% more girls are in school than they were in 2013-14. This is because of the goal.
• The number of girls in B.Tech courses at NITs has grown from 14.11 percent in 2017-18 to 17.53 percent in 2019-20, and the number of girls in IITs has grown from 8 percent of all students in 2016 to 18 percent in 2019-20.
• A study by NCERT found that only 23% of primary school teachers in rural areas were women, while 60% of teachers in urban areas were women. So, it’s clear that there aren’t enough qualified women teachers, especially in rural India, and that this is a big problem.
• Even though the number of girls going to school is going up, there is still a big problem with how many of them drop out.
• According to the 2018 “World Employment and Social Outlook Trends for Women” study, there are more educated and working women than ever before.
Concerns about the education of women in India:
• In traditional Indian culture, sons are seen as assets and girls are seen as liabilities. Because of this, spending money on girls’ education is not a top concern.
• In traditional Indian culture, a woman’s only job is to take care of the house and kids, which doesn’t require any education.
• Some people worry that if a woman gets an education, she will get a job and become independent, which could hurt a man’s pride.
• Indian society is patriarchal, which means that everything revolves around men and women don’t have much of a part.
• In poor families, the girl child has to take care of her younger brothers and do chores around the house. Because of this, she doesn’t have the money or time to go to school.
• Bad cleanliness in schools, especially for women, makes them less likely to go to school.
• Infrastructure problems, like the lack of roads or the school’s distance from the town, make it hard for women to go to school.
Why is it important to teach women?
• Health benefits: Getting women to read and write is one of the best ways to improve a society’s health and economy.
Making sure that girls get an education starts a chain reaction of good things: better reading leads to delayed marriage, fewer and healthier children, and a decrease in poverty.
• Poverty: Educating women helps lift families out of poverty by putting them to work.
In 2018, only 26% of working-age women in India are women.
So, women’s schooling is important if we want to get more women to work.
Also, women are less likely to have bad habits like drinking, and they tend to be savers.
• Changes in society: Educating women will help solve many problems that society faces.
In 1968, the Kothari committee said that education was a way to improve society.
India can get to its goal of social growth if it speeds up the education of women.
• Equality between men and women: The woman is a part of society that doesn’t have a lot of advantages. Education can help close the gap between men and women in society.
Children will learn to respect girls if they go to schools where boys and girls learn together.
• Economic productivity: Not only will it help women’s finances, but it will also raise a country’s GDP.
• Less babies die before their first birthday: A woman with a good education is more likely to make decisions that are good for her family’s health.
Studies have shown that if more women learn to read and write, the child mortality rate will go down.
• The growth of society as a whole: As a growing country, India wants all parts of society to grow, and education is one way to reach this goal.
• Empowering women: Education is a strong tool for freeing and empowering women.
Women haven’t had their rights for a long time. By getting an education, she can find a place in the world.
• Strengthening democracy: Education will make women more aware, which will lead to more women getting involved in politics, which will in turn make democracy stronger. They could get their rights by getting together.
Measures taken by the government to help women get an education
• The Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao plan aims to make more people aware of the needs of girl children and improve the quality of services for them. The campaign’s original goal was to change the fact that there are fewer boys than girls among children. It also tries to get girls educated, help them stay alive, and protect them.
• Digital Gender Atlas: To help improve girls’ schooling in India, the Ministry of Human Resource Development made a digital gender atlas.
• National Scheme of Incentive to Girls for Secondary Education (NSIGSE): The goal of this programme is to make it easier for girls to go to secondary school and lower the number of girls who drop out.
• Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan: In order to get more girls to go to elementary school, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan has programmes specifically for girls. These include opening schools, hiring more women teachers, building separate toilets for girls, and educating teachers, among other things. In Educationally Backward Blocks (EBBs), Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas have also been set up.
• Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA): It aims to improve the quality of education by making sure that every village has a secondary school within an acceptable distance, improving the quality of education at the secondary level, and getting rid of barriers based on gender, socioeconomic status, and disability.
• Udaan: The CBSE has started ‘Udaan’ to help girls in Class XI and Class XII prepare for their exams by giving them free online tools. The main goal of the plan is to increase the number of girls who go to schools with good reputations.
• STEM education: Extra places have been added to the IITs and NITs so that more women can take part in STEM education.
Suggestions
• Making more people aware of how important it is for girls to go to school.
• There should be non-formal education options for girls so that they can learn in a way that is most convenient for them.
• Getting more qualified and skilled women to work as teachers, especially in rural places.
• It must be made sure that schools are built and run well in the towns.
• Making sure that girl kids and female teachers are safe.
• The mass media should take an active part in making the world a better place for girls’ education.
• Special plans and accommodations must be made for the girl child with a disability.
• It should also be taken care of how well girls are educated.
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Health
• There is a lot of racism against women in India, so they are more likely to have problems in their lives, especially when it comes to health care.
• Women in India don’t have enough access to health care because they are malnourished, don’t have access to simple sanitation, and can’t get treatment for diseases.
• Here are some important health problems for women that need to be dealt with.
Immunisation: Getting a shot is one of the best ways to avoid the short-term and long-term affects of serious diseases that can be prevented.
We can’t say enough about how important they are.
UNICEF says that 7.4 million children in India have not been immunised. This is the most in the world.
o Unfortunately, a child’s gender can also affect whether or not they get vaccinated. Girls are said to get less vaccines than boys.
Malnutrition: India is thought to have one of the highest numbers of women who aren’t getting enough food in the developing world.
o This is especially bad when there is a lot of economic inequality and poor people can’t get enough food or food with the right amount of nutrients.
o People who are malnourished are more likely to get contagious diseases that, in some cases, like pneumonia and tuberculosis, can be deadly.
o Bad nutrition also hurts the health of both moms and kids.
Poor socioeconomic conditions in India make it hard for a lot of women to get the care they need, which hurts the health of their children and makes it hard for the mother to live a full, productive life at home, in society, or even in the business.
o In many places, the death rate for mothers is still high because of poverty, old ways of thinking and doing things, and a lack of access to good medical care.
Menstrual Hygiene
o India has more than a billion people, so it’s surprising and upsetting that only a small number of women have access to clean menstrual care.
o In many cultures, having your period is still associated with being dirty, and women are often not allowed to go to holy places or even cook food when they are on their period.
o It’s usually a taboo subject, which makes it harder for young girls and women to break the circle of false beliefs.
Even now, millions of women in India don’t have access to or can’t afford to buy sanitary pads. Instead, they use rags, leaves, or husks, which aren’t very clean. This could cause infections, rashes, and pain.
Access to health care based on gender
o Gender is one of the key social determinants of health, which include social, economic, and political factors that have a big impact on the health of women in India and their access to healthcare in India.
o You can figure out how gender affects health care access by looking at how resources are shared in the home and in the public space.
o Indian gender roles are shaped by patriarchy, authority, and families with more than one generation.
o Men have more rights and advantages than women, which makes society unequal and gives women little to no power.
o It has been found that Indian women often don’t report being sick as much as they should. Because of these cultural norms and gender standards in the home, people may not report being sick as often as they should.
o Gender also has a big effect on whether or not people get prenatal care and immunisations.
Women’s health situation
• Sex Ratio at Birth: The UNFPA State of World Population 2020 report said that the sex ratio at birth in India was 910, which is on the lower end of the measure.
• Health of Adolescent Girls: By the time girls are teenagers, 70% of them are anaemic, and their problems with menstrual health and cleanliness are often not taken care of.
• Adolescent Fertility Rate (AFR): The United Nations says that the Adolescent Fertility Rate (AFR) is the number of births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 19 that happen each year.
The National Family Health Survey-5 looked at 22 states and found that Tripura had the highest AFR with 69 births per 1,000 women.
With 14 births per 1,000 women, Goa had the lowest rate of teen pregnancy.
• Teenage Pregnancies: When girls are pregnant as teenagers, they are three times more likely to die. Women’s needs for sexual and reproductive health are often forgotten.
About 113 women in India die every year because of lies told about them because they were pregnant as teenagers. Also, not all of these deaths are being reported.
• Problems with reproductive health: Seventy percent of women in India have infections in their reproductive tracts, which can lead to infertility, abortions, and other problems that are seen as normal.
• Maternal Mortality Rate: The Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) is the number of deaths of mothers in a certain time period divided by the number of live births in that same time period.
The MMR of the Country has gone down from 122 in 2015–16 to 113 in 2016–18. In 2014–2016, it was 130.
• Women During the Pandemic: Many of the women who work on the front lines during the pandemic don’t have access to easy necessities like PPE kits, which makes them more likely to get sick.
There is an unmet need for menstrual goods for women who work in PPEs. There is also an unmet need for birth control.
Women who get sick, like frontline workers, have to deal with double the trouble because they have to take care of themselves and other infected family members.
Even when women with covid-19 are taken to the hospital, they stay there on average for much less time than men with the same illness.
Most of the girls who drop out of school are girls.
Government plan to make sure women have access to health care
• Health and Wellness Centres: India has about 76,000 health and wellness centres that screen for hypertension, diabetes, breast cancer, mouth cancer, and cervical cancer.
About 46.4 crore people visit these health and wellness places every year. 53.7% of these people, or 24.91 crore, are women.
• Adolescent Friendly Health Services Programme: There is a programme called Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram that teaches female teens about their health.
The project also tries to reach all teens, including those who are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, or Questioning (LGBTQ).
• Auxiliary Nurse Midwife: An Auxiliary Nurse Midwife, or ANM, is a woman who works in health care in a village in India. She is the first point of contact between the village and health services.
• Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY): Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), which is part of the National Health Mission (NHM), is a programme for safe motherhood.
It started on April 12, 2005, and is being used in all states and UTs. Low-performing states are getting extra attention.
JSY is a programme that is completely paid for by the government, and it combines cash aid with care during delivery and after birth.
• Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY): PMMVY is a programme for women who are pregnant or who are nursing.
The programme has helped more than 1 billion people.
Is a direct benefit transfer (DBT) programme that gives pregnant women cash benefits directly into their bank accounts. This helps them meet their increased food needs and makes up for some of their lost wages.
Malnutrition problem in India
• On average, a girl kid younger than 5 years old is healthier than a boy of the same age. But over time, they become women in India who aren’t getting enough food.
• Many Indian people are malnourished and have anaemia.
• A quarter of women in India who are of childbearing age and have a body mass index (BMI) of less than 18.5 kg/m are undernourished, according to the NFHS 4 2015-16.
• Since 1998-1999, both starvation and anaemia have become more common among women.
• Based on their height and weight, the body mass index (BMI) says that 33% of married women and 28% of married men are too thin.
• Most people who are too skinny are poor, live in the country, don’t go to school, or are part of a group called a “scheduled caste” or “scheduled tribe.”
• About 2% of women and 24.3% of men have anaemia, which means they have less iron in their blood than they should.
• Since 1998-1999, the number of ever-married women with anaemia has gone up. Anaemia has gone up from 50% to almost 58% among pregnant women.
The different reasons why men and women have different health statuses are
• Patriarchal thinking: Even though society has changed, most women still have to deal with systems that are based on men. The grip of patriarchy is made even stronger by class and caste hierarchies, making it hard for women to avoid discrimination.
• Early Marriage: This means they don’t get enough iron in their food, which leads to early sex and having children.
• Low social status: Parents are more likely to choose a boy over a girl, which is worse for the girl’s health.
• Women in India often don’t eat enough to meet their health needs because they don’t have a wide range of foods to choose from. Most people are affected by a diet low in iron and other micronutrients.
• Poverty: People have less food to eat when they don’t make enough money.
• Low literacy: When mothers and girls don’t know how to read and write, they are more likely to eat poorly and have their bodies change.
• Lack of knowledge: People don’t know how important certain nutrients and vitamins are, which makes the situation worse.
• The way women reproduce and the fact that they don’t have access to health care and the right drugs. When mothers only wait a short time between pregnancies and have a lot of kids, this can make nutrition problems worse, which are then passed on to their kids.
• Sociocultural customs and different ways of doing housework can also make it more likely for women to be malnourished.
Actions taken by the government to fight malnutrition
• ICDS Scheme, which stands for Integrated Child Development Services.
• Mission for the National Health.
• Mid-Day Meal Scheme.
• Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojna (IGMSY).
• The unconditional love of a mother.
• SABLA.
• The National Nutrition Mission (POSHAN Abhiyaan) wants to make sure that “malnutrition-free India” is reached by 2022.
• Improve food security by making MGNREGA stronger.
Suggestions
• Improving the health of women can have a big impact on the health of the whole family and the health of children.
• Since a lot of the money poor people make goes to medical care, improving the health of women and their babies can make a huge difference in how much they have to spend on their homes.
• Access to family planning and maternal health services, as well as schooling for girls, usually improves women’s economic opportunities and lowers the number of children they have.
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Low rate of women in the work force (LFPR).
• India has some of the fewest women working of any country in the world.
• The Economic Survey for 2017-18 showed that only 24% of Indian workers are women.
• Only 40% of women work around the world. This means that India is well below average.
• A 2015 study by the McKinsey Global Institute found that India’s GDP could grow by up to 60% by 2025 if more women could work there.
• Even though 37.1% of young people are working, there is a big difference between the rates of participation for men (57.1%) and women (12.7%).
• India doesn’t have a coordinated work system or equal pay for men and women.
• Three out of every four women in India don’t work or do anything else that makes money.
• When more than half of our young people are not working in a formal job, it is hard to take advantage of India’s demographic edge.
• One way to close the gap between men and women in India’s economy is to focus on the 253 million young people (15–24 years old), of which 48.5% are young women.
• Between 2004 and 2018, the gender gap in workforce participation didn’t change, but the gender gap in school attainment did. This means that women have one of the lowest labour participation rates, which has been going down steadily since 1950.
• The newly released Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), 2018-19 shows a big drop in absolute employment for both men and women. From 2011 to 2019, the number of people working in rural areas went down from 35.8% to 26.4%, while the number of people working in urban areas stayed about the same at 20.4%.
• According to a 2019 Oxfam study, the pay gap between men and women is widest in Asia, with women making 34% less than men with the same qualifications and work. Despite what the Equal Remuneration Act of 1976 in India says, this makes it hard for women to work.
• Women make up a disproportionate share of India’s informal economy, and they tend to work in low-paying, risky jobs. • Nearly 60% of women work in agriculture, where they make up the majority of landless labourers in an almost entirely informal sector with no access to credit, subsidies, few tools, and very low asset ownership.IndiaSpend says that in 2019, only about 13% of women who worked the land owned it.
Problems that Indian women workers face
• Lack of economic power: According to the World Development Report 2012, only 51% of women work around the world, while 80% of men do. According to the most recent PLFS Survey, it is 23% in India.
Women don’t have enough high-level management jobs, but they have too many low-paying jobs. The Oxford Survey shows that only 19% of companies around the world have a woman as a top manager.
• Access to productive capital: It’s harder for women to get the money and capital they need to grow, start a business, or do other work that helps the community.
Women usually don’t have access to informal networks that give them chances to work on high-profile projects, such as going to workshops abroad or getting new jobs.
• Crisis of normal employment: When women aren’t counted as workers, it’s because there aren’t any jobs available, not because they “dropped out” of the workforce.
During the pandemic and the lockdown, this problem of getting steady work will have gotten worse.
• Not meeting certain requirements for women: Younger, more educated women often don’t look for work because they want skilled jobs that aren’t in agriculture. Older women, on the other hand, are more willing to do manual tasks.
In most countries, more men than women go to high school, but in India, less than 80% of women and men do.
• Unequal pay: Most of the time, women don’t make as much as men, but there are a few exceptions.
Women still make 20% less than men around the world. In a recent ILO study, India was listed as one of the five worst countries, with a 34% difference in pay between men and women.
In other words, women get 34% less than men for doing the same job and having the same skills.
The pay gap between men and women is widest for jobs outside of agriculture, which is a new and growing source of work.
• The “Glass Ceiling” effect: In corporations, women still make on average 79% of what men do. Only 5% of Fortune 500 CEO positions are held by women, and on average 17% of global Board positions are held by women.
When it comes to recognition from their peers, women are at a loss because they can’t get as much help.
According to a McKinsey study, women were passed over for promotions even at Google because of how they chose to have children.
Women still face the same kinds of bias at work as they do in society as a whole.
A recent study by Accenture says that the pay gap between men and women in corporate India is as high as 67 percent.
• A woman’s workday is very long and full of drudgery. If you count all types of work, like economic work and care work like cooking, cleaning, child care, and care for the old, a woman’s workday is very long and full of drudgery.
In the peak season, the FAS time-use survey found that women worked a maximum of 91 hours (13 hours a day) in economic action and care.
No woman works fewer than 60 hours a week.
• Safety Issues: Concerns about safety and both overt and covert harassment at work.
• Social norms: Social norms about housework make it hard for women to move around and get paid jobs. After having a child, women often stop looking for work because they have to take care of their old parents or in-laws.
The cultural stigma against women working outside the home is so strong that in most traditional Indian families, women have to quit their jobs before they can get married.
When family incomes go up, women often quit their jobs to take care of their families and escape the social stigma of working outside.
Norms and stereotypes in society: The Oxford University Survey said that men are called “bread winners” and women who work are called “career women.” It also pointed out that most of the unpaid work is thought to be done by women.
Deeply embedded bias: both men and women have it, and it works against real equality. Based on the results of the PISA test, the idea that “boys do better at maths” is not true. But people still believe this.
• Motherhood penalty: After having a child, many women who work can’t go back to work.
The famous Maternity Benefit Act of 2017, which gives women the right to 26 weeks of paid maternity leave, is making it hard for small businesses and start-ups to hire women.
• Lack of opportunities: According to NSSO, urban men made up 16% of India’s population in 2011-12, but they held 77% of all computer-related jobs.
This shows how gender has become a factor that makes it harder for women to get some white-collar jobs.
Suggestions:
• Non-farm jobs for women: There needs to be more industrial and service jobs in rural places that aren’t related to farming.
• Childcare Facility: With help from state governments and NGOs, towns and cities should open more crèches so that women with kids can go to work.
Women will be able to get jobs because of the crèches.
• Education and Empowerment: More money spent on social programmes, like education, can help more women join the workforce by increasing the amount of human wealth women have.
• Skill Development: Programmes like Skill India, Make in India, and new quotas for men and women on corporate boards and in the police force can help bring about good change. But we need to put money into teaching skills and helping people get jobs.
The private sector could also do more to train women to be business owners.
Unilever’s Shakti programme, for example, taught rural women in India how to be “micro-entrepreneurs” and sell personal-care goods as a way to get its brands into rural India.
• similar pay: Indian law protects the idea that work of similar value should be paid the same amount. This idea needs to be put into practise.
To reach this goal, wages need to be more clear and job evaluations need to be fair for both men and women.
• Safe access to work: It’s important to improve transport and communication networks and give women who travel to or have moved for work a safe place to stay.
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‘Invisible’ Women farmers in India
• The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says that if women farmers had the same access to resources as men, they would increase output by 20–30%, which would greatly reduce hunger.
• This could add up to 4% to the total amount of food grown in poor countries.
• In rural India, about 33% of farmers are women and about 47% of farm workers are women.
• As many as 84% of rural women rely on agriculture for their main source of income.
• Only 12.8% of land is owned by women, even though they are essential to the whole production chain.
• Swaminathan, a well-known agricultural scientist, says that it was women who first grew crops and started farming as both an art and a science.
• As time goes on, more and more people realise how important women are to agricultural growth and how much they help in agriculture, food security, horticulture, processing, nutrition, sericulture, fisheries, and other related fields.
• Women have played and continue to play a key part in protecting the land, water, plants, and animals that make life possible. They have kept the earth healthy by recycling organic matter and have made crops more secure by keeping a wide range of varieties and genetic resistance.
• The number of women who raise chickens in their own homes is the most important thing in the chicken business.
• Most of the big farming jobs in India are done by women, from planting to reaping, but they have less access to resources than men. To speed up growth in the farm sector, this gap between men and women must be closed.
• Almost all of the work in this sector’s side businesses, such as raising animals, fishing, and growing vegetables, is done by women.
Women farmers have to deal with:
• Unrecognised: Most of the work that women farmers do, whether it’s growing crops, taking care of animals, or taking care of things at home, goes unseen.
• Lack of support: The government’s attempts to teach them about poultry, beekeeping, and country handicrafts aren’t very important, given how many of them there are.
• Lack of representation: Women farmers don’t have much of a voice in society, and you can’t find them in farmer’s groups or at small protests.
• No ownership of land: The biggest problem is that women can’t claim ownership of the land they’ve been working on.
In the 2015 Census, almost 86% of women farmers did not own land. This may be because our society is set up in a male way.
Only 14% of them own land.
• Lack of credit facility: Systemic barriers to finance, inputs, extension services, and land rights have limited their potential and recognition as the backbone of the agrarian environment.
Women farmers can’t get loans from banks because they don’t own land. This is because banks usually use land as collateral for loans.
• Less access to resources: Women have less access to resources and modern inputs (seeds, fertilisers, pesticides) that make farming more effective.
Men still do things like get loans, take part in mandi panchayats, evaluate and decide on crop patterns, talk to district officials, bank managers, and government representatives, and bargain for MSPs (minimum support prices), loans, and subsidies.
• Migration: Over the past 10 years, farming has become less valuable, and small and marginal farmers have moved to cities. As a result, full-time women’s jobs in rural areas have become daily-wage labourers.
When guys move to cities for work, they don’t have a choice.
• Farmer suicides: In 2014, out of 8,007 farmer suicides, 441 were women, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
Also, 577 women who worked as workers killed themselves that year.
• Lack of Mechanisation: Most of the designed farm tools are used by men, while women in rural areas are left to use traditional tools and methods. This leads to low efficiency, hard work, health risks on the job, and low income.
Suggestions:
• Credit Facility: Under the micro-finance programme of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, loans should be made without collateral. This should be promoted.
For example NABARD’s SHG bank connection programme
• Collective Farming: Women can be taught to be self-sufficient by giving them the chance to grow together.
Women should get training and learn new skills, like some self-help groups and daily joint activities (Saras in Rajasthan and Amul in Gujarat) do.
Farmer producer organisations can help you find out more about these things.
• An method that focuses on women: Farm machinery banks and custom hiring centres, which are supported by many state governments, can be used to help women farmers rent equipment at a discount.
In addition to providing extension services, Krishi Vigyan Kendras in every area could also teach and train women farmers about new technologies.
Agricultural extension programmes should help women improve their food output and give them more opportunities to work on exports.
• Education and awareness: Changes must be made to the legal, financial, and educational processes to improve women’s social and economic contributions to rural development over time.
Women need direct access to information about better ways to farm and how to get to markets.
In the digital world of today, it’s also important to think carefully about the information and contact tools that can help farmers who may not be able to move around much reach markets.
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The political inequality of women in India
According to the UN Women in Politics 2019 report, there were 149 women in India’s governing government and Parliament.
• The Economic Survey 2018 said that women’s political involvement has been low, even though they make up 49% of the population. It called for more women to be involved in making decisions in the country.
• The Economic Survey 2018 said that there are growing countries like Rwanda, where more than 60% of parliament members in 2017 were women.
• Only 14% of the 17th LS were women.
• Between 2010 and 2017, the number of women in India’s Lower House (Lok Sabha) went up by 1%.
• As of October 2016, only 9 percent of the 4,118 MLAs in the country were women.
• Bihar, Haryana, and Rajasthan have the most women lawmakers (14%), followed by Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal (13%), and then Punjab (12%).
• Some of the main things that kept them from running for office were their domestic duties, the way people in their culture thought about women’s roles in society, and the lack of support from their families.
• Lack of trust and money were two other big reasons why women didn’t get involved in politics.
• Before every election campaign in the country, people start making rude and sexist comments about the women running for office, which sometimes makes them decide to drop out.
• In 1996, the Women’s Reservation Bill was passed. It said that 33 percent of places in Lok Sabha and the state legislative assemblies would be set aside for women on a rotating basis. The 15th Lok Sabha was dissolved in 2014, so the law no longer applies.
• The constitution gives each state a certain number of seats based on how many people live there. As a result, only 12% of the seats are held by women, which is a lot less than the real number of women. So, from a justice point of view, this is an odd case.
Reasons for the low turnout:
• Social: Household duties, patriarchal ideas about women’s roles in society, and a lack of support from their families were some of the main things that stopped them from running for office.
Before any election campaign in the country, people start making rude and sexist comments about the women running for office, which sometimes makes them drop out.
• Economic: Lack of trust and money were the other main reasons why women didn’t get involved in politics.
Significance of women leaders: • In India, women lawmakers improve the economy in their districts by about 1.8 percentage points more per year than male legislators.
• If normal growth is 7%, this means that the growth advantage of having women in government is about 25%.
• Less criminalization of politics: When men run for office, they are about three times more likely than women to have criminal charges filed against them. This explains the difference in growth that was talked about above.
• Policy Making: Women’s and children’s issues should be better represented in policy making. Institutions like Panchayat Raj are a good example of this.
• Less corruption: The rate at which women gain assets while in office is 10 percentage points lower per year than that of men. Experiments have shown that women are more fair and less willing to take risks than men. They are also less likely to commit crimes or do other risky things.
• Economic growth: Both men and women politicians are just as likely to negotiate government projects for building roads in their districts. But women are more likely to be in charge of making sure these projects get done.
For example, the number of unfinished road projects is 22 points lower in districts where women are in charge.
• From a feminist point of view, politics needs to take a path that gets women out of their usual social and political marginalisation.
• Even though women have a lot going for them, only 14% of the Lok Sabha and 11% of the Rajya Sabha are women.
• There is proof from both the international level and the village level (gramme panchayat) that more women in elected positions makes the process and priorities of elected bodies more balanced.
• When it comes to how policy is made, having women in the House makes it more likely that there will be talks behind the scenes instead of fights on the floor.
• As measured in Rwanda, the agenda covers a bigger range of family issues.
• Esther Duflo and Raghabendra Chattopadhyay’s NBER Working Paper 8615 shows that in a randomised trial in West Bengal, women pradhans (heads of village panchayats) focus on infrastructure that meets the needs of rural women. This suggests that, at least at the local level, results can be different.
Suggestions: • India should have an effort lead by the Election Commission to try to get political parties to set aside seats for women.
• Giving women more space in political groups is a better idea.
• Quotas for women in Parliament, as planned by the Women’s Reservation Bill.
• Women are more likely to get involved in politics if they know about it, learn about it, and see other women doing it. This helps get rid of gender stereotypes that see women as weak leaders.
• Inclusive political institutions are needed for inclusive economic institutions and growth, which are both needed for and rely on social empowerment.
• Increasing female literacy, especially in rural areas, will help improve women’s leadership and communication skills. • Women should be given more power so that they can break down sociocultural barriers and improve their standing in society.
Women’s Reproductive Rights: • In the past, the Indian government’s approach to reproductive rights has been more focused on controlling the population than on giving people more freedom and getting rid of structural hurdles to reproductive health services. This is shown by the fact that there are still problems getting services.
• Because of its early adoption of family planning and population control methods in the 1950s, India was one of the first countries to pass laws about abortion and legalise conditional abortion.Even though contraception was available, the focus was on meeting targets for sterilisation instead of short-term spacing methods. This has changed the focus from making abortion and contraception available to everyone to meeting top-down population control goals.
Women have the following reproductive rights: 1. The right to a safe and legal abortion; 2. The right to birth control; 3. The right not to be forced to get sterilised or use birth control; 4. The right to good-quality reproductive health care; and 5. The right to education and access so that they can make free and informed decisions about their reproductive health.
Concerns: • Lack of freedom of choice: Millions of people face structural, institutional, and cultural barriers to using accredited abortion services, such as shame, not knowing the law, cost, fears about privacy, and not having access to healthcare institutions. These barriers affect poor women, who often live in remote, rural areas, more than they do wealthier women.
• Lack of awareness: Early marriage, pressure to have children early, lack of decision-making power within the family, physical violence, and coercion in sexual and family relationships all lead to less schooling and lower incomes for women.
• Patriarchal attitudes: Until a certain number of boys are born, women are not allowed to have enough time between children, which makes them weak and puts their lives at risk. Also, women are not allowed to go to school out of fear that their husbands and families won’t be able to control them.
Suggestions: • Healthcare and Awareness: Focusing on the health needs of women, their nutritional status, the risk of early marriage, and childbearing is a sensitive problem that needs urgent attention if the situation of women is to improve.
At the same time, there is a need for large-scale programmes to make people aware of health care issues at the grass-roots level.
• Legal Framework: There is a push for a law like the Reproductive Rights (Protection) Act to protect and promote the reproductive rights of women and to take care of all the issues related to their reproductive health, such as providing medical facilities, raising awareness, and making sure there are health policies and programmes for women.
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The Internet and women
Today is the age of social media, whose appearance and use have helped spread ideas about women’s empowerment quickly and far. Social media has become a force for social change that has helped and supported women’s equality in many ways, such as bringing the attention of the global community to women’s rights and challenging discrimination and stereotypes around the world. Through blogs, chats, online campaigns, online discussion boards, and online communities, women can talk about their problems and problems that they face. This is something that mainstream media doesn’t usually talk about or spread.
What role social media plays in the lives of women
• Social media is easy to use and brings together people who know how to use the internet.
• The rights of women
There is a clear connection between social media and women’s rights.
Social media has opened doors and made everything available to everyone, everywhere. This means that there are no more fences or other ways to keep people out.
Women’s rights violations and women’s rights groups have quickly taken advantage of social media’s ability to raise awareness in a way that nothing else can.
Women can now use social media to fight against things like gender stereotypes, gender repression, etc.
• Stopping guys from hurting women
Internet and social media can help activists and others dispel myths and stereotypes, but they can also make it easier for violence against women to continue.
Hashtag movements to stop violence and unfair treatment of
Social media is a great place to talk about and share ideas, stories, and hashtag movements to stop sexual violence and discrimination against women.
It’s a new thing for women’s rights activists to plan a campaign or rally to fight for gender equality.
Through social media, women from all over the world are able to connect with each other and support each other, including lawmakers, officials, and business owners who want to make sure that men and women have the same rights.
The hashtag feature on Twitter, in particular, makes it easy for women to keep up with issues that are important to them and form groups based on their shared concerns, which can range from immediate personal needs to calls for large-scale social change. For example, #MeToo, #SelfieWithDaughter, and so on.
• Women Entrepreneurs
Social media is becoming one of the best ways for women to start new businesses, ventures, or start-ups because they can talk to customers and clients directly.
Social media is a great way for female entrepreneurs to sell their businesses because it’s cheap and easy to do.
With the help of new technology, social media makes it possible for millions of people around the world to find online work or start businesses for other people.
Shradha Sharma, for example, is the founder and chief editor of Yourstory.com, which is an online media platform for start-ups and small businesses. It is India’s top online media technology. It has told more than 20,000 stories about entrepreneurs in 12 Indian languages. Each month, more than 10 million people read these stories.
• Letting people be heard
Participating in a protest or for a cause is cheaper on digital media. This makes more people want to take part and makes politicians pay attention.
Even though women are still underrepresented, social media levels the playing field by letting people from a wider range of backgrounds have their opinions heard, even if they don’t have the traditional power.
It fills in the gaps left by the standard media, where only 38% of bylines are written by women.
• Global Communities
Female-based communities are changing in a way that doesn’t depend on a single company or location. Instead, they connect female players from different fields and places.
Because the internet gets around so many of the things that keep us apart, women who were once alone can now get in touch with high-profile people in their field and build an easy-to-use platform for self-promotion.
In the past, women have had a harder time turning ideas and plans into money. However, the combination of social media and crowdfunding is changing that.
For example, in July 2020, women posted black-and-white pictures of themselves with the message “#challengeaccepted” on Instagram. Women who took part in the task would tag another woman in their selfie post and challenge her to post a black-and-white photo of herself and nominate someone else.
• Breaking down barriers: Social media breaks down cultural barriers, legal restrictions, economic barriers, and more. This lets women from all over the world, even from countries with misogynistic systems, be better represented, and has been a key part of activism during the pandemic, despite lockdowns and social distance.
Problems that women on social media have to deal with
• Online harassment and other forms of internet abuse are most likely to happen to women.
• Because women get more attention on social media, they are often the victim of oppressive acts. This means that women face the same kinds of problems online as they do in person.
• Online crimes are often accepted because it’s hard to find the people who did them and because the systems for delivering punishment are complicated and hard to reach.
• This makes people less likely to trust the legal system, which makes it harder for women to get ahead.
• In this situation, rapists are using social media to scare their victims into not reporting the crime.
• Harassers use these sites to shut down women who try to change the way society treats women.
• A study found that a third of the women who were asked stopped giving their opinions online because they were afraid of abusers.
• Online bullying is now happening in real life, which has led to things like deaths.
• A study done all over the world found that 20% of women who are harassed offline think that this is because of the abuse they get online.
• Some people are even at risk of being stalked because they are online. This happens a lot in places where the law isn’t enforced well, where patriarchy is strong, and where online trolling is popular.
• People often make fake accounts to hurt the reputations of their victims.
• In recent years, the internet has become a tool for sexism against women, with hate campaigns happening all over the world. E.g. Revenge porn.
• Because of the global limits caused by the pandemic, more people are going online. This has led to more cases of online gender abuse.
Measures needed in Women and Social Media
• At the government level, the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal will be set up as the national reporting site for electronic materials under the POCSO Act.
Through the authority it has chosen, the Union Government will be able to block and/or ban all websites and intermediaries that carry information about child sexual abuse.
Law enforcement should be able to break end-to-end encryption in order to find people who distribute child pornography.
In 2018, a cyber crime portal was made so that people could report offensive material.
In each state, cyber police stations and cyber crime teams were set up to report and look into cybercrime.
• Use of artificial intelligence: Tools can be made that can study how each internet user acts. So it can help the user avoid becoming a victim of cyberbullying.
Making some apps for mobile phones that can tell parents if their child is being cyberbullied.
Make sure malware strikes don’t happen by working with antivirus companies.
• Handling cases in more than one way: Cases of cyberbullying need to be handled in more than one way, such as by getting help from a psychologist or the cops, among other things.
The next step
• Social media sites have a moral duty to keep their users safe.
• They should work to make sure that reporting systems are clear and easy to use so that people can use them to stop cyberbullying.
• Making social media sites take responsibility
• The rules for empowering women must include steps to stop online harassment.
• An online crime reporting unit for women must be set up so that reports about harassment of women on social media can be dealt with more quickly.
• Getting more women into politics to get rid of social injustice, discrimination, and misogyny
• Most cybercrimes on social media sites are dealt with by IPC laws that deal with traditional crimes like sexual harassment, invasion of privacy, etc. • These laws are not very good at dealing with tech-driven crimes, which hurt victims more than traditional crimes because there is no justice.
• Because of this, the computer crimes covered by the IT Act need to be thrown out, and the IPC needs to be changed to include all cybercrimes, including the ones covered by the IT Act.
As part of a knowledge society in the new media age, social media do a lot to empower women by giving them access to information and education that helps them make better decisions from anywhere and at any time. This may not be possible without social media.
