Maneka and Indian NGOs face off in Bangkok

Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi on Wednesday said she was delighted to see a large number of Indian women NGOs at the Asia and Pacific conference on gender equality and women's empowerment - Beijing Plus 20. The NGOs, however, did not return the compliment and issued a statement expressing their disappointment over the government's participation.

Ms. Gandhi was speaking at the ministerial segment of the conference which started on Wednesday and she listed the government's achievements and plans to make women stronger, a day after India changed the wording in the draft ministerial text, replacing caste with social origin in a paragraph which referred to discrimination faced by women.  

In a statement, representatives of civil society delegations from India said they are disappointed with the Government of India’s participation and deliberations during the conference which is reviewing 20 years of the Declaration on women’s rights made in 1995 in Beijing and the 12 critical areas related to women's empowerment under the Beijing platform for action. The conference will also discuss the adoption of the draft Asian Pacific Ministerial Declaration on Advancing Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment.

On the first day of the conference on Monday, civil society groups said the Indian delegation in its statement over emphasized the impacts of notional budget allocations for women under different schemes, terming it as the tool to achieve gender equality. The statement said the issue of impunity and specially women’s situation in conflict was not addressed at all and instead the government representative glorified campaigns like Swachh Bharat.

The women's groups said the gravity of the prevailing sexual violence, the appalling condition of reproductive health, discrimination faced by women due to social and cultural norms, lowering sex ratio, feminisation of poverty and several related issues acting as crucial barriers to equality, didn't figure  in India’s official deliberation.

Apart from

>changing the word 'caste' to 'social origin' , India also rejected the word ‘conflict’ and proposed that it be replaced with ‘armed conflict’ in the draft declaration. Just before she made her speech at the conference, a delegation of civil society groups submitted a memorandum to Ms. Gandhi who described it as being 'very general’ and suggested that the groups can use it ‘to justify their foreign trip’. 

The six points in the memorandum referred to women in political and economic decision-making, equal and meaningful participation in governance with proportional electoral reforms, or 50 per cent representation in the government,  education for girls and women in new technologies and management skills, economic empowerment,  job creation, wage parity, a national action plan to address violence against women, and other key issues including addressing the situation of women in armed conflict and caste discrimination.