As the tri-colour is hoisted by thousands across the country to mark the 67 Independence Day, amidst fervent patriotic chants and songs, the slogan ‘Beti Zindabad’ will be clearly heard. It is to reverberate through special Gram Sabhas being held in 15 States to draw attention towards urgent issues such as the declining child sex ratio and violence against women.
A campaign for gender equality, ‘Beti Zindabad’ will see volunteers from ActionAid and its partner organisations engaging with rural panchayats and urban local bodies from August 15 to October 2 to bring up the issue of sex selective abortions for consideration across Gram Sabhas through special meetings.
Special Gram Sabhas will be held in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Chhattisgarh.
The preparation for the national campaign against declining child sex ratio began almost a year ago when it was conducted in a phase-wise manner at a regional level in many States. Encouraged by the response from several villages, the volunteers now aim to advance further a nationwide debate and discussion on the critical and urgent need for recognising women’s and girls’ rights as human rights in both rural and urban parts of the country.
While it is widely known that some of the more “developed” States are the worst offenders and have the lowest child sex ratio, yet a 11-point decline in the number of girls to 923 in 2011 (as opposed to 934 in 2001) is sharper in rural areas than in urban areas (where it reduced by just one point to 905 in 2011 Census as opposed to 906 in 2001).
The latest census figures shows that child sex ratio has gone down shockingly in Jammu and Kashmir within a high percentage of Muslim population where abortion and preference for son is not common, as well as in the tribal belts of the country suggesting that technology had made inroads into the otherwise inaccessible area where basic public healthcare does not even reach.
In the next phase, these social organisations will be looking at engaging with the urban local bodies and the city youth to take forward the message of women’s rights through a series of debates, cultural expressions, community mobilisation, within the next four months.
ActionAid India has since June 2012 been aligning with various organisations, women’s rights groups and activists, state actors and academics in Lucknow, Jaipur, Bhopal, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Patna, Kashmir – consolidating various views and ideas that will improve the state of affairs of women in the country.
“We’re hopeful that starting from the Special Gram Sabha of August 15, marking India’s Independence Day, several Gram Sabhas will respond to our appeal and resolve to ensure a violence-free and gender-just environment for India’s women and girls,” said Sandeep Chachra, Executive Director, ActionAid India.
