GIRL CHILD AND WOMEN EMPOWERMENT

Hope for girl child can become a pleasant reality if we can tackle one of the greatest challenges of human existence i.e. the challenge of gender discrimination and bias. Only gender equality with total women empowerment can ensure a safe and secure future for the girl child. When women are healthy, educated and free to take the opportunities of life, they prosper. When women prosper in life the family in turn flourishes and flourishing families with assertive women in charge ensure bright future for the girl child. The necessity of strong and healthy women Children who are the nations future wealth can flourish and thrive only when women in the family and the society are healthy, educated and independent in terms of making informed choices about their life. But the situation is far from ideal. Women are facing extreme hardships and marginalization because of gender based discrimination and bias. They are subjected to innumerable forms of violence and hardships. Majority of Women in large parts of the world are weak and are subjected to a life which is totally dependent on others. She faces domestic violence, falls in the trap of commercial sexual exploitation and faces the brunt of harmful traditional practices such as early marriage, premature pregnancy, female genital mutilation etc. The negative consequence of all is faced by the girl child. The practice of girl child foeticide, infanticide, low enrolment into education, abuse and a life of misery and deprivation is what that is in offering for the girl child when women are weak and they are not able to take care of their children. Women empowerment and protective home environment So any hope for girl child depends upon the total empowerment of women. Gender based equality can ensure the resurgence of strong and assertive women and in such circumstances we can see the real flourishing of the girl child. Totally empowered women will share a relationship of equality with their partner. This in turn will lead to a positive reinforcement where the girl child will be adequately taken care in a secure and protective home environment. We can see that empowerment of women and the girl child is a mutually inclusive phenomenon where the development of women can lead to the development of the girl child and this in turn leads to further empowerment and development of women. In fact such positive cycles once generated will carry on in a continuous manner. Supportive home environment is a must A difficult and unsupportive home environment is the prime reason why girls dont go to school. High illiteracy rates among women and lower school attendance rates among girls, especially at the secondary level, constitute discrimination against the girl child. Unreasonable workloads in the home, preferences for sons, a disregard for the rights of girls, early marriage, child labour, poverty, and the threat of violence keep too many girls from completing their education and trap them and their families in cycles of poverty. The other major hindrance against a good home

environment for the girl child is the regressive gender beliefs, customs and traditions. In fact most boys, men and women know that girls are overloaded with work, little is done to help girls or share in their workload. This is due to beliefs about gender and a girls role, and to the economic situation of the family, society and the nation as well. Here the need is to engage men and boys to create gender parity: encourage them to contribute to the work of household chores and to challenge violence and gender roles and traditions that are unjust and harmful. Strengthen the family unit to remove girl child labour Girl child empowerment and hope for girl child in terms of a better future is only possible if we strengthen the family unit and provide a secure, protective and caring home environment for the girl child. The family needs to be made economically viable. Once this happens then we can free the girl child from the child labour that she is put into. Further through parental education and training we can eradicate regressive and repressive customs, traditions and mindset which make the society biased against the girl child. These parental education and training programs should go into specifics and discus every aspect about the girl child development and empowerment including the nutritional and healthcare requirements, education, recreation and free time for the girl child, sexual and reproductive rights and protection against sexual abuse. To keep the girl child in school incentives can be planned and actually the economic support to the family should be tied up with the criteria of girl child education. The positive benefits from all these programs can be seen as a change in the home environment where parents will provide a loving and secure environment for the girl child to grow and blossom. She would be taken care in terms of her nutritional and health requirements and she will be sent to school with a progressive mindset. Further this will foster a secure environment where the parents and elders will be vigilant against sexual or other kind of abuse against the girl child including violence. The girl child will thus grow in a home environment which is supportive to her needs in every possible way. Concrete steps that is required in providing a congenial home environment and hope for girl child includes empowering families economically to prevent worsening poverty and the harmful consequences of child labour and exploitation; providing adequate health services and abuse prevention systems to protect children; educating all girls, boys, men and women on childrens rights, womens rights and human rights, as well as their roles and responsibilities in upholding these rights through preventing violence and discrimination and building gender equity in the home, community and nation. Hope for girl child: Role of government in handling girl child institutions The government and other bodies in the society should ideally work with a goal to eliminate such institutions completely and integrate the orphaned back into the society. But for this even the society has to respond back by being liberal enough to provide a home for the orphaned. Meanwhile it would also serve well to make the staff and supportive system in the girl institutions to be gender sensitive. Any kind of discrimination and bias in these instructions should be dealt with strongly. On the other hand necessary training and education should be imparted to the staff in these organizations so that they can provide an environment which is at least conducive for positive growth of the girl child.

Therefore the work of the government is cut out in terms of improving the quality of these institutions while working to make them obsolete. To achieve this goal the government with the help of the other supportive structures of the society must initiate children into safe family environments as soon as possible, support families so they can deinstitutionalize children, build gender equality, and teach parents a rights-based approach to parenting and new parenting skills that will enable their girl children to be self-confident and successful. Further to bring real hope for the girl child the government should Support the formation of community based abuse prevention activities, including child protection committees, mentoring programmes, provision of day care centres for children of working parents, and psychological, legal and social support to families and orphaned children. Hope for girl child: The needs of the girl child The needs of the girl child include the needs of the physical, emotional, psychological and intellectual realms. The girl child needs a home environment which is caring and which provides love to her. It should be an environment which is secure and protective. Her physical needs are related to adequate nutrition and healthcare. Further time for recreation and play develops her physically and education makes her ready for a bright tomorrow. Whenever the girl child has been asked about her needs, she has expressed her desire for more committed teachers, clean water, parental involvement in her education, and treatment with the same respect as boys in school. In fact what a girl child is asking for is a life of equality and dignity where she gets equal opportunity to pursue her goals and dreams in life. The government and the other supportive bodies of the society should take up the issue of adequately funding initiatives to ensure girl childs rights; improving school curricula, providing incentives to girls education and ensuring free, compulsory and quality inclusive education for all children. To provide true hope for girl child the governments should formulate policies based on the Millennium Development Goals, the Dakar Framework for Action and the United Nations Girls Education Initiative (UNGEI) goals of gender parity in primary and secondary education. Hope for girl child: Track the status of the girl child Just planning and implementing the laws, legislations and policies is not going to bring us the necessary results in terms of real hope for girl child. It is also necessary for us to track the status of the girl child empowerment programs at various levels to understand the gaps that exist between the actual plans and the ground level results that have been achieved. In this regard the government should collaborate with social organizations and other structures in the society to bring out concrete data which can show the results of girl empowerment programs in a transparent way. If we dont initiate such measures then all the precious resources that go into these programs will remain unaccounted and this will create a breeding ground for corruption and other malpractices. More importantly tracking the status of the girl child and girl child empowerment programs will give a real picture of the impact of policies and programs pursued by the government towards creating a society which is just and gender neutral. Further the action required by the governments also includes documenting the statistics of women and girl child abuses and making that information popularly known.

Finally once again let me reemphasize the fact that education of girls is one of the most effective methods of girl child empowerment as well as national growth and development. Girl child education helps in protecting girls from discrimination and violence, helps in strengthening the family as a unit and helps in eradicating poverty, corruption and malpractices from the society.