Empowerment of Women in Pri-Vidushi Copy

8/8/2019 Empowerment of Women in Pri-Vidushi Copy

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NATIONAL SEMINARON

FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATION OF

PANCHAYATI RAJ INSTITUTIONS INUTTAR PRADESH

(MARCH 30 31,2010)


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WOMEN EMPOWERMENT IN PRI INUP: AN OVERVIEW- VIDUSHI RASTOGI

INSTITUTE OF DEVELOPMENT STUDIESUNIVERSITY OF LUCKNOW

LUCKNOW


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INTRODUCTION

Empowerment is a multi-faceted, multi-dimensional and multi-layered

concept. Womens empowerment is a process in which women gain

greater share of control over resources - material, human and

intellectual like knowledge, information, ideas and financial resources

and control over decision-making in the home, community, society and

nation, and to gain power

According to the Country Report of Government of India, Empowerment

means moving from a position of enforced powerlessness to one of

power.

The UN document Women lists out six areas of concern to women

world over. These are legal literacy, health, education, work, politics andviolence. The data shows that women constitute 70% of the worlds

poor and two thirds of the worlds illiterates.


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In India the study of women development can be categorized into three

phases-in 50s the focus was on the 'welfare' which shifted todevelopment in the 70's and from 90s onwards to empowerment.

Empowerment stage started in 1992 through the 73rd Constitutional

Amendment which declared 33% reservation of the total seats of PRI for

the women. This institutional change has brought 10 lakh women to

political field for the first time

With the introduction of reservation or quota system women empowerment

was hoped through equally collective voicing and participation in the

development stream. in this presentation efforts have been made to throw

some light on how far these steps has been really effective in involving

women in the decision making process and getting them integrated with the

mainstream of decision making? Has it really worked in solving the basic

issues and problems faced by women in the society?


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RESERVATION IN REPRESENTATION

Schedule castes -- 11%

Schedule tribes -- 12%

Other Backward Class -- 27%

Women -- 33%


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Dimensions of women

empowerment

Economicprofile

Political profileSocio

economic

profile


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SOCIO-ECONOMIC PROFILE

Mean age of female member is 44.5 years-majority of them

belongs to the age group of 46-55 years.

All of the female members are married.

Education literacy rate is low among the women members to

55%,out of which only two were post graduate. In comparison

90% of male members are educated.


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ECONOMIC PROFILE

50% of women members belong to the lowest income strata

i.e. Rs.10,000-20,000 and 50% to the highest income strata,

i.e. Rs. 50,000 and above. Similar trend was seen in the case

of women members land holding. The same trend has been

observed in the case of the men members too.


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POLITICAL PROFILE

Majority of the women members was first time entrants in the

field of politics , reservation has helped in bringing women to

the political forum, but there is a significant difference between

the level of political awareness among men and women

members.


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FINDINGS REGARDING THE

PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN IN LOCAL

GOVERNANCE LEVEL The quality of participation of the women members in the meetings atall the three tiers was observed to be low.

Major decision making power was in the hands of male members only.

The women members have not been able to take up women related

issues in the meetings in a major way.

Women seem to give importance to the issues that the men consider

important.

The participation of the women members in the meetings and their

taking interest in the village activities is directly correlated to theattitude of the Head towards reservation for women.


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CONTD.

The participation of the women members was seen to vary withinthe three tiers that is, gram panchayat, panchayat samiti and

Zillah parishad.

There is no variation in the functioning of the Panchayati Raj

System (PRS) on the basis of the gender of the head of the tier.

A significantly high degree of positive correlation of 0.89 wasobserved between education and awareness of the issuesrelated with women.

Almost all the women gram Pradhans agreed that grantingreservation and thus paving the way for political participation inthe rural local bodies is a praiseworthy step towards womenempowerment but about 80% held the view that employment andasset generation for women will prove to be a better and a moreeffective delivery vehicle for empowerment.


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CHALLENGES IN FRONT OF THE

FEMALE MEMBERS

Despite the reservations made for the women, they still face considerablehandicaps to their involvement in politics-

Inadequate information and education, illiteracy and lack of awareness arecommon deterrents to participation.

The burden of reproductive and productive roles of women leads to

immobility which is a serious impediment in their performance. Lack of financial independence or control of assets.

Pradhan patis (elected womens husbands) are a most commonphenomenon in gram panchayat meetings .There are cases where womenwere forced to contest by male members of their families. they merelyacted as dummy gram Pradhans who simply sit through the meetingswithout any active participation .

Lack of information , training and political visibility

It is observed that there are gender biases in the bureaucratic set uptowards women elected representatives.


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SUGGESTIONS AND STRATEGIES FOR

THE EFFECTIVE ROLE OF WOMEN

The strategy should be such that bring women into politicalstructures

and support the backward and forward linkages of womenspresence in politics ,linking household and family priorities with

macro-planning processes. Focus of building capacities of women in local governance-

1.through education .

2.through ensuring involvement in managing and decision makingon various issues.

3. through intensive training for elected members for functional

literacy. Strengthening womens networks and advocacy through interface

with planners and policy makersso as to interact and articulatetheir concerns and influence policies


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Documentation of the process-ensuring researchdocumentation and publication on women in localgovernance will help in wide dissemination ofinformation to improve replication. Documentation of

capacity building strategies include the holisticapproaches, training material and methodologies ,andlarger processes of planning at local levels.

A symbiotic relationship between PRI system and SelfHelp Groups will help in providing financial

empowerment along with the administrativeempowerment and also help in reduction of genderdiscrimination .


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CONCLUSION

After going through the previous slides , it is clear that decentralization

process has provided representation , but representation does not

necessarily mean participation. A concurrent awakening process is required

on the objective of decentralization and women empowerment to insure

participation of all social groups and accountability of governance. It would

only be fair to conclude that the provision of reservation of seats in PRIs ,

although seems apparently laudable, has merely inducted a few women in

the political process and raised their status temporarily, without, evincing

any desirable signs of their active participation in decision making in the

interests of women.


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Thank you

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