Workshop on Multidimentional Approach to Development of Girl Child
23 Jan 2023

State level workshop on multidimensional approach to development of Girl Child organized by WCDC with support from ADRI and CARE
 
Patna, 23 January.  All of us need to think in what ways we can enforce rights for women so that they can stand on their own feet. This was enunciated by the Minister of Social Welfare, Government of Bihar, Shree Madan Sahni at a workshop titled Multidimensional Approach to Development of Girl Child organized by Women and Child Development Organization (WDC), Patna and supported by Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI) and CARE India(Patna). He cited improvements made by the government of Bihar towards alleviating the condition of girls and women. For example, the Cycle Yojana dramatically ameliorated their state and is still relevant. The government awards a sum of money to girl students who go on to higher education. That is why 22 girl students were recently provided cash when they cleared the PT exams of BPSC. Women are working independently in Panchayats as a result of reservation for women in Panchayati Raj institutions. He added that we need to inculcate attitudes in people so that they behave properly towards women. He declared that this chain of improvements is not going to stop.
 
Smt. Harjot Kaur Bumrah, Chairman cum Managing Director, WCDC remarked that the state of women in Bihar has changed quite a lot. Large numbers of young women are progressing in every field due to reservation being provided by the Honorable Chief Minister in different services. The Corporation is working in association with Jeevika in order to reduce domestic violence. She announced that WDC is initiating counseling services for women in 210 Police circles of Bihar in the coming days. Through the medium of the aforesaid centers, free psycho-social and other counseling services will be provided to violence-affected women. The Bihar government has made great effort to ensure participation of girls in primary education. Approximately 99 percent of girls are receiving primary schooling. Bihar government is determined to facilitate the progress of girls in every field.  WCDC has also prepared a gender transformation policy. WDC has sent funds to all the 38 District Magistrates for the installation of sanitary pad vending machines at girls’ schools located in all urban areas. This constitutes the first phase of Menstrual Sanitation Management for girls.
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In Technical Session One, Professor Anita Raj stressed that girls’ education is helping them to have a better marriage, husband and be better mothers. Professor Rakhi Dandona lamented the fact that less than 1 percent of the national budget is allocated for the safety of women. The focus should be on society rather than the victim if we want to save women. Dr. Badri Narayan Gopalakrishnan, formerly of the NITI AYOG was of the view that the economy gets to be stronger as a result of increased stability when women are educated. Consequently, inequality becomes less.
 
Technical Session Two was chaired by Shree Tripurari Sharan, Chief Information Commisioner, Government of Bihar. In this session, Dr. Tanmay Mahapatra opined that there should be no difference in our approach towards girls and boys as far as health issues go. We should create a better place for girls for a better society, he remarked. Dr. Seema Handu held out that empowering women will result in better outcomes, especially for the girl child. Dr. Geeta Verma pointed out that most of the girls in India live in only 6 states, including Bihar. Therefore, Bihar can play an important role in changing the narrative for the girl child. Technical Session Three was chaired by Sri Dipak Kumar Singh, Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Education of the Government of Bihar.
 
While Professor Prabhat P Ghosh, Member-Secretary, ADRI delivered the Welcome Address. In the vote of thanks, Dr. Ashmita Gupta of ADRI emphasized that such interdisciplinary workshops are extremely important and bring together policy makers and researchers on a common platform.
 

Concept Note: The Woman and Child Development Corporation (WDC), Bihar, the Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI) and CARE India together will conduct a one day Workshop on January 23, 2023 to celebrate the National Day of the Girl Child. January 24 is marked as the National Girl Child day and is celebrated every year across the country to spread public awareness about the inequities that girls face in the Indian society. The aim of the Workshop is to organize a multidisciplinary exercise which aims to look at the holistic development of the girl child.

“Gender Inequality exists in most parts of the world, from Japan to Morocco, from Uzbekistan to United States. Yet inequality between men and women is not the same everwhere. It can take many different forms, such as mortality, natality, basic facility, special opportunity, professional, household and ownership”, as remarked by the Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen. Consequently, achieving gender equality is one of the eight stated goals of the UN Millenium Development Goals Report. However, in order to address inequalities faced by girls, it is necessary to have a multidimentional and holistic approach that encompasses poverty, infrastructure, malnutrition, legal issues and other sources of deep rooted biases. Adopting a broad based approach helps us to target inequalities and identify policies to reduce muldimentional vulnerabilities faced by the girl child.

The Government of Bihar, under the leadership of Honourable Chief Minister Shree Nitish Kumar, has introduced several policies targeted towards girl children and women. Many of these initiatives are path-breaking, such as reservation of women in government jobs, Panchayati Raj institutions, teacher and police jobs. Ever since 2005, many policies have been introduced by the Government of Bihar in health, education, gender discriminatory norms, social protection and household infrastructure. Some of these schemes such as ’Mukhyamantri Balika Cycle Yojana’, substantially improved school attendance of girls and reduced their dropout rates by about 40 percent. Self-help groups formed under JEEViKA and Gram Varta, have led to changes in the positive direction, such as increase in asset ownership, formation of strong networks, and positive attitude towards aspirations of women.

In the last few years, the Government of Bihar has made its priorities clear by declaring Seven Resolves (Saat Nishchay 1 and 2). Many of these resolves are directly targeted towards women; for example, 35 percent reservation for women in all government jobs from 2016 onwards. There are many which are targeted towards the development of household infrastructure, such as piped drinking water for houses, electrification, and development of toilets, drainage and sewerage facilities. All these indirectly benefit women as it will reduce some of the burden of domestic work. Some of the effects of these schemes are already visible in Bihar, such as presence of a large number of females as traffic police and in police services. These have led to a changed perception that women need to be only in less physically challenging occupations. The increase of an aspirational class of women in a primarily male dominated and agrarian society can surely be attributed to some of the affirmative actions taken by the Government of Bihar.

However, Bihar still fares reasonably low in gender development indices, compared to other states. The sex ratio is 918 per 1000 which is lower than the national average. It has lower levels of female literacy and one of the lowest levels of labour force participation in the country, only 2.8 percent. It also has a high incidence of child marriage and low political representation. Many of these indicators are used to calculate the gender equality index in Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). In a recent report of the NITI Aayog, Bihar was placed right at the bottom of the ranking of SDG. How does one explain the poor gender equality indicators in spite of so many affirmative actions taken by the State Government? In order to answer this, one must keep in mind that gender related issues are not isolated and are manifestations of bigger issues, such as the nature of growth, poverty, legal dimentions, environment, malnutrition and hunger.

In this background, this Workshop aims to follow a multidimentional and holistic approach towards development of the girl child. The Workshop will have day long sessions where the resource persons will talk about the following issues that are essential to address inequalities faced by the girl child (a) Health and Nutrition, (b) Globalization, Economic Growth and Poverty, (c) Attitudes, Bias and Aspirations, (d) Legal system, and (e) Environmental changes

The Workshop will also have an interdisciplinary brainstorming session, with a focus on research evidence from across the world and particularly in Bihar. There will be a session that will try to formulate concrete policy suggestions and a roadmap for a way forward in order to have holistic development of the girl child, with special reference to Bihar. The aim of the Workshop is to bring together policy makers, researchers, practitioners and grassroot level workers and hopefully offer a fresh understanding of the problems of girl children.

Webcast Link:- Click Here