The statistics of gender bias (Opinion)
- In an election year male politicians talk about India’s security. But none will talk about 50% of citizens (women) living in deep insecurity & discriminated against.
- Women are not threatened by terrorists but by society in which they are born. They comprise 48% of India’s population.
- World Bank in its 2012 report on “Gender Equality and Development,” estimates in last 2 decades 2.5 lakh girls were killed every year for being born a female.
- 3rd National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) found post neonatal mortality rate for Indian girls is 21/1000, compared with 15 for boys.
- In 1-4 years age group, “child mortality rate for girls, at 23/1000, is 61% higher than for boys, at 14.”
- WB report says because of bias India lost 2.5 lakh girls in 2008.
- Systematic massacre has tacit backing of society and a result of government’s indifference to it.
- Sections 312 to 317 of the Indian Penal Code list the punishments for causing miscarriage, injuring unborn children, preventing a child from being born, etc
- There have been few cases of conviction over the last 20 years. There should have been 10 million prosecutions going by number of girl children killed in this period.
- 2011 census shows that the sex ratio in the age-group 0-6 had fallen in 27 States and Union Territories from 2001.
- United Nation’s Human Development Report 2013 estimates that 42.5% of Indian children suffer from malnutrition (as against 3.8% in China).
- NFHS-3 established that when mothers were undernourished, 54% of their children were stunted & 25% wasted.
- Treatment of little girls moulds the psyche of their brothers, who internalise the view that their needs — as males — have preference over those of their sisters.
- 2007, Ministry of Women and Child Development “National Study on Child Abuse,” report 53% children interviewed suffered one or more forms of sexual abuse.
- Gravest concern was in most cases children reported that the attack was by someone they knew, often a close relative.
- National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reports that in 2012 there were 24,923 cases of rape registered. In 98% of the cases, the victims knew the offenders.
- As per Millennium Development Goals, maternal mortality in India which was 301 per lakh of live births in 2001 should be down to 75 by 2015
- At 27 million live births in India each year, at least 54,000 women die in the process.
- NHRC found that 54% of the women it surveyed agreed that wife-beating was acceptable if the wife went out without telling her husband.
- Adivasi and Dalit women are branded as witches.
- Girls are being killed for marrying boys of their choice or for not bringing in enough dowry.
- India cannot be secure, developed or respected if the democracy in which it takes pride does not bring about urgent and fundamental change in the lives of its women.
Exams Perspective:
- Gender Violence
- Millennium Development Goals (MDG)
- National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3)
- National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)
- United Nation’s Human Development Report 2013