Date:27/12/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/12/27/stories/2008122750960200.htm

New Delhi

Delhi turns spotlight on women’s issues

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: To deliberate on female foeticide, domestic violence and reservation for women in Parliament, a two-day convention titled “Mainstreaming gender and concerns in policies and programmes” opened at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research here on Friday.

Organised by Women Power Connect (WPC), a conglomerate of over 700 women’s organisations, along with the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Population Fund, the convention is being attended by senior officials from the government and U.N. organisations, women’s organisations and development practitioners from different parts of the country.

A road-map for a partnership between the government and civil society to address issues like gender budgeting and reservation for women in Parliament will be sought as part of the convention.

Female foeticide tops the agenda at the convention. With the national average of 927 females every 1,000 males, some States are already below 900/1,000 and the problem is worsening with each passing day.

To highlight the issue at the national level and take stock of interventions made by the government and civil society organisations, WPC held a special session on Friday in which participants representing States with low sex ratio worked out a future strategy to check this menace.

Stating that female foeticide was considered an issue of importance only by organisations focusing on women’s empowerment, WPC president Ranjana Kumari said the issue demands immediate attention from policy-makers and other members of society since it can lead to serious imbalances in the human population.

Besides female foeticide, the convention will run sessions and set agendas on issues relating to the Domestic Violence Act, gender budgeting, sexual harassment, trafficking and equal participation of women in politics.

As part of the meeting, a publication titled “Good practices in gender mainstreaming: Case studies from India” was also released. This resource book is an outcome of the research project jointly conceived by the Union Ministry for Women and Child Development, WPC and UNDP.