Struggle for safety of women in India

The struggle for gender equality has to be inevitably focused on women — their health, their empowerment, their education and inevitably man has to be instrumental in enforcing gender equality everywhere in the world and consequently in Jammu & Kashmir as well. Since the irrefutable fact is that sustainable change for the empowerment women in every sphere of public life is not possible without involvement of men, so the empowerment of women has to be institutionalized. Forget the empowerment women; the safety of women has become a concern for the people in India and a challenge for the government. Though the incumbent central government takes pride in laying its focus on the education empowerment of women through popular schemes like “Beti Bachao, Beti Padao”, but unfortunately the girl child has become unsafe in the country as the incidents of rape and murder of the minor girls in several parts of the country have surfaced in recent years. Though laws have been framed for capital punishment of the rape accused but government has failed to fast track the trial of the rape accused in the rape cases of minors that have surfaced during last four years. The country where the government fails to bring to justice the rape accused of minor rape cases can’t be a safe territory for girl child and gender equality won’t become a reality unless and until the government does not amend laws concerning security and safety of women at homes and work places. While the government has failed to take care of the concerns of women in India, the women have themselves shown the ways to break barriers coming their way. Unfortunately men are not coming forward to remove the hurdles coming the way of women in the absence of stringent laws for the security and safety of women at homes and work places.
On the eve of International Women’s Day this year, the priority of the government has to be on the amendment in laws concerning the safety and security of women and rules of engagement for gender equality at work places.
By all standards of understandabilities the gender equality has to be enforced to make sure that women are safe both at homes and work places as the idea of enforcing new rules of engagement for making men and women equal partners is generating an encouraging response from people of all shades and opinions. Since a beginning for making men and women equal partners in every sphere of public life has to come from the government with the enforcement of new rules of engagement at work places, the onus of changing the rules of engagement in work places lies on the government. On the eve of International Women’s Day this year, the priority of the government has to be on the amendment in laws concerning the safety and security of women and rules of engagement for gender equality at work places.