As the year comes to a close, another data nugget offered proof that Indian governance still has a long way to go to achieve gender equality— the representation of women in Parliament and in most State legislatures was less than 15%, the Law Ministry informed the Parliament during its Winter Session. While the share of women members in the Lok Sabha stood at 14.94%, the same in the Upper House was 14.05%.
India, however, is not alone in this regard. The United Nations Gender Snapshot 2022 revealed that women held only 26.4% of seats in national Parliaments worldwide. At the current pace, it would take another 40 years to achieve equal representation in national political leadership globally.
This year had its fair share of ups and downs when it came to women’s rights and achieving a level playing field. While there were many firsts for women across the globe from India appointing diplomat Ruchira Kamboj as its first female Permanent Representative to the UN to Ketanji Brown Jackson becoming the first Black woman to be a U.S Supreme Court Justice , there were also large-scale curtailments of rights. While Iranian women took to the streets to demand their rights, the Taliban’s return to Afghanistan dealt major blows to women’s education and liberties. Here’s a roundup of developments and statistics in 2022 that give a glimpse into where we currently stand on gender equality.
What did data on women show in 2022?
The Gender Gap Index: India ranked 135 out of 146 countries on the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2022, placing poorly among its neighbours— behind Bangladesh (71), Nepal (96), Sri Lanka (110), Maldives (117) and Bhutan (126). Only Iran (143), Pakistan (145) and Afghanistan (146) performed worse than India in South Asia. India ranked lastin the “health and survival” sub-index of . India did rank 48 in the “political empowerment” parameter, but the share of years women have served as heads of state for the past 50 years diminished.
The Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks the current state and evolution of gender parity across four dimensions: economic participation and opportunity; educational attainment; health and survival, and political empowerment.
While the global gender gap closed by 68.1% in 2021, it will still take 132 years to reach gender parity worldwide. Among sub-regions of the world, South Asia was set to take the longest to achieve gender parity, at an estimated 197 years. While no country reached full gender parity in 2021, Iceland crossed 90% mark, at 90.8%, the only country to do so. Sub-Saharan African countries Rwanda (81.1%, 6th) and Namibia (80.7%, 8th) also featured in the top ten.
Crimes against women: The UN’s 2022 report oon the progress of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), revealed in its Gender Snapshot that in 2021, more than one in ten women and girls (12.5%) in the 15-49 age group was subjected to sexual and/or physical violence by an intimate partner globally. One woman, the report showed, was killed by someone in her own family every 11 minutes. Child marriageremained prevalent, with risks compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic— UNICEF estimates that 10 million children worldwide could become child brides as a result of the pandemic. While a large proportion of countries specify 18 or above as the legal age of marriage , in 2021, nearly one in five young women were married before the age of 18.
Here at home, the National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) report released in August revealed that nearly 49 cases of crimes against women were lodged every single hour—4,28,278 cases of ‘crimes overall against women’ were lodged in 2021, the highest figure in 6 years. Uttar Pradesh with over 56,000 cases fared the worst. The number of rape cases recorded between January and December 2021 in the country was 31,878— an average of 86 daily. The NCRB data show the police got complaints relating to domestic violence or cruelty by husband/his relatives from 137,956 women, amounting to one case every four minutes.
Under the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) data released this year, 40% of women and 38% of men surveyed said it was okay for a husband to beat his wife if she disrespected the in-laws, went out without permission, denied sexual intercourse, and so on. The rate of domestic violence during the survey period (2019-21) was 29.3%. The overall prevalence of child marriage or girls getting married before the legal age of 18, while declining from the previous survey, remained at 23.3%.
Women’s health: Unsafe abortions continue to be a leading cause for maternal mortality. Globally, over 1.2 billion women and girls of reproductive age (15-49) live in countries with some restrictions on safe abortion. 102 million womenlive in countries where abortion is prohibited altogether. Among women aged 15 to 49, the NFHS-5 showed that 57% of the surveyed women in India were anaemic and more than half the pregnant women or 52.2% were anaemic. The percentage of institutional births (pregnant women who delivered inside hospitals) increased by 9.8% points compared to NHFS-4, to 88.6%. India, however, was ranked last on the ‘health and survival” index of the Gender Gap Report, which looks at two metrics— sex ratio at birth and healthy life expectancy. According to the NFHS-5, the sex ratio at birth for children born in the last five years was 929 females per 1,000 males.
Women in the workforce and politics: On the global level, the 2022 SDG report stated that on the last count in 2021, women held less than 1 in every 3 managerial positions (28.3%). Women held 26.4% of parliamentary seats and over a third of seats in local decision-making bodies (34.3%). Women’s participation in the economy in India remained low, per NFHS data. The proportion of women who worked and were paid in cash increased only by 0.8% points (to 25.6%). During 2013- 2022, India did significantly increase women’s representation on boards of companies from 6% in 2013 to 18% in 2022, according to EY India’s ‘Diversity in the Boardroom’ report.
How did women come together for their rights?
A case of two contrasting protests:
“Woman, Life, Freedom”
An activist displays a placard inscribed with the words “Women, Life, Freedom”, during a demonstration in support of demonstrators in Iran, in front of the Brandenburg Gate lit up with the words “Woman, Life, Freedom” in various languages including Kurdish and Persian, in Berlin on December 13, 2022. | Photo Credit: JOHN MACDOUGALL
The second half of 2022 was marked by rapidly intensifying women-led protests that swept Iran, triggered by the death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini. On September 16, Amini, earlier arrested by Iran’s now-disbanded morality police, for wearing the hijab (headscarf) “improperly”, was reported to have died. According to eyewitnesses, Amini was beaten in custody, an assertion denied by the authorities. Agitated, thousands of youngsters, largely women, took to the streets demanding an end to the mandatory hijab rules in the country and calling for other political reforms, posing one of the biggest challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution. In videos going viral on social media, women were seen waving, setting alight their hijab and cutting their hair in defiant acts of protest. “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” or “Woman, Life, Freedom” became the resounding slogan of the movement.
In Frames | Iran protests: Bare heads, steely hearts
Iranian women have had a tumultuous relationship with the hijab, with changing regimes imposing varying policies on the article of clothing, associated in Islam with modesty. The Reza Shah Pahlavi regime, nfluenced by the West, issued a decree banning the hijab, giving women the difficult choice of staying indoors or being allowed in public places, provided they did not wear the veil. In this period women’s protests were focused on wearing hijab as a symbol of resistance to the Shah regime, and as a move to support women who wanted to remain veiled. However, the hijab and loose-fitted clothing become mandatory four years after the 1979 revolution that overthrew the US-backed monarchy and established the Islamic Republic of Iran. The leader of the revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, announced that hijabs will be mandatory for all women in their workplaces. Resistance then began against the strict dress code norms and their monitoring by morality police squads in public places. Violation could attract fines and even flogging. Clothing norms gradually changed, especially under former moderate President Hassan Rouhani, when it became commonplace to see women in fitted jeans with loose, colourful headscarves, with their hair partly visible. But in July this year his successor, the ultra-conservative Raisi, called for the mobilisation of “all state institutions to enforce the headscarf law”.
To quell this year’s protests, the regime has used repression and propaganda. At least 475 people have been killed in the demonstrations amid a heavy-handed security crackdown, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran Over 18,000 have been detained by authorities. The Iranian regime recently seemed to show signs of softening, by disbanding its morality police. Iran was also removed from the United Nations human rights body for cracking down on the protesters.
“Ticket to education”
HYDERABAD, TELANGANA, 15/02/2022: Members from the Muslim Women Association hold placards as they stand along a roadside during a silent protest after few Karnataka’s educational institutes denied entry to students wearing hijabs. | Photo Credit: NAGARA GOPAL
Here at home, meanwhile, the hijab was at the centre of another set of protests and petitions that reached the Supreme Court. It started with some pre-university girl students being barred from entering classes in Karnataka’s Udupi district because they were wearing headscarves. Soon, incidents were reported in other colleges where Muslim girls protested after being denied entry. As a counter, Hindu students who wore saffron shawls were also denied entry into some classrooms.
The students approached the Karnataka High Court over the issue. The State government was quick to issue an order stating that students had to comply with the uniform/dress code prescribed by College Development Committees, or wear dresses that maintain “equality and unity” and don’t “hamper public order.” Muslim student petitioners asked the High Court how the headscarf was a threat to “public order” and asserted that the wearing of the hijab was a part of essential religious practice as per Islamic faith and college authorities could not prevent them from attending classes while wearing hijab.
Protests soon spread to other areas of coastal Karnataka, where hijab-donned girls and saffron-clad students clashed.Educational institutes were ordered to remain closed for days, as protests turned violent in some parts. The Karnataka High Court ruled in March that the hijab was not a part of essential religious practice and that restrictions related to uniforms were reasonable restrictions to 19(1)(a). The petitioners challenged the order in the Supreme Court. A two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court on October 13 delivered a split verdict. While Justice Hemant Gupta of the Supreme Court concurred with the High Court and observed that “apparent symbols of religious belief cannot be worn to secular schools maintained from State funds”, Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia said that secularity meant tolerance to “diversity” and added that for girls from conservative families, the hijab was their “ticket to education”
How were rights curtailed in some parts and extended in others?
The Taliban capture of Afghanistan completed a year this August, with the authoritative regime continuing its reversal of women’s rights. Despite initially promising a more moderate rule respecting rights for women and minorities when they took power, the Taliban has widely implemented its stringent interpretation of Sharia law. They have banned girls from middle school and high school, restricted women from most employment and ordered them to wear head-to-toe clothing in public. Women are also banned from parks and gyms.
In its Gender Alert issued afterone year of Taliban rule on August 15, UN Women documented the successive curtailment of women’s rights. The de facto Taliban administration first dissolved the country’s Ministry of Women’s Affairs. It then banned women from playing sports and the participation of female actors in television dramas. Additionally, women news presenters were first directed wear the Hijab and then to cover their faces on air. Schools for girls in grade 7 and above were to reopen but were instead closed indefinitely in March. Women were told to stay indoors in the absence of necessity and driving schools were instructed to no longer issue licences to women. While Universities were reopened with segregated classrooms in February this year, the last month of 2022 saw women being banned altogether from private and public universities with immediate effect. They also announced the exclusion of women from NGO work, a move that has already prompted four major international aid agencies to suspend operations in Afghanistan. Calling on the administration to reverse the curbs immediately, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk remarked: “No country can develop — indeed survive — socially and economically with half its population excluded.”`
A rally in Pennsylvania protesting the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. | Photo Credit: AP
In the United States, a Supreme Court verdict dealt a heavy blow to women’s bodily rights and privacy, when the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision was overturned in June. The conservative-dominated SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) said, “The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion;… and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.” With the verdict, nearly 40 million women of reproductive age were projected to lose access to abortion in the near future. According to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights advocacy research group, 26 states were certain or likely to ban abortion; and at least 13 states had ‘trigger bans’ in place which meant abortions were banned under most circumstances and came fully into effect with the overturning of Roe. President Joe Biden termed the ruling a “tragic error” and a “sad day” for America and the Court.
Back in India, in a triumph for the right to equality, dignity, privacy, and bodily autonomy of women, the Supreme Court made it possible for single and unmarried women to have the same right to medically safe abortion as married women, in a historic judgment on September 29. A bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud pried open the constraints of the country’s 51-year-old abortion law and said in its ruling: “The rights of reproductive autonomy, dignity and privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution gives an unmarried woman the right of choice as to whether or not to bear a child on a similar footing as that of a married woman.” In the same verdict, the court also recognised marital rape as a form of sexual assault for the purposes of interpreting the abortion law.
What were the firsts for women’s representation in the year?
This file photo shows French fourth official Stephanie Frappart during the Qatar 2022 World Cup, the first woman referee at men’s World Cup. | Photo Credit: AFP
This year marked several administrative and social firsts for women. Most recently, the FIFA World Cup in Qatar saw its first women referee. Closer home, India’s skipper Harmanpreet Kaur became the first Indian woman to be named the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Player of the Month in the women’s category in September. Besides, cricket tsaw a major step towards achieving pay parity between male and female players— the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced an equitable pay policy for contracted women players, declaring that women cricketers will be compensated with the same match fee as the men: ₹15 lakhs for test matches, ₹5 lakhs for ODIs, and ₹3 lakhs for T20 Internationals. In the U.S. too, the Soccer Federation announced a new deal, aiming to eliminate the gender gap and facilitate equal pay for the national men’s and women’s teams, including World Cup prize money.
In terms of political representation, Peru got its first female President in Dina Boluarte this month, albeit in the midst of a political crisis where the previous president was ousted. Honduras too got its first female President Xiomara Castro in February this year. Meanwhile, while Italy elected its most far-right administration since the Second World War, it also got its first female Prime Minister in Georgia Meloni.
As mentioned earlier, the U.S. got its first Black woman judge in the Supreme Court, and India, its first female permanent representative to the UN. Notably, Pakistan appointed Ayesha Malik as its first female Supreme Court judge at the start of 2023. In the educational sphere, the top three rankers in this year’s Union Public Service Commission exam in India were all women. In the Corporate arena, Madhabi Puri Buch became the first female chief of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in March, and beauty product retail giant Nykaa’s CEO Falguni Nayar became India’s richest self-made women in the IIFL Harun India Rich List.
