Women be given share in decision making: Renuka

New Delhi, Apr 26: Minister for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury has called for treating women not only as vote bank but they be given a fair share in decision-making through decentralised planning.

Addressing the 4th World Congress on Rural Women at Durban in South Africa today, Ms Chowdhury underlined the role of women in the overall development of the society and said that empowerment of women could ensure development in right perspectives.

Emphasising that women should be given the opportunity to rise to her fullest, she said that decentralised and local self-governance hold the key to women's empowerment in the rural areas, an official release said here today.

Apprising of the developments in the area of women welfare in India, the Minister said that of the approximately 127 million women workers in India, 106 million are in the rural areas and 96 per cent of these are in the unorganised sector. Globalisation and liberalisation which are driving the economy, were impacting women.

Increased volatility of employment leading to ejection of older women, she said that the nature of women's work is changing with an increase in informal, self employed low-end service work and more unpaid work, she pointed out and added that with a decline in agriculture-related work, increasing migration of women was leading to insecurity and exploitation.

Ms Chowdhury said that the government's efforts have, therefore, been multi-pronged. Legislations protecting women from violence, recognising daughters as equal inheritors in ancestral property, guaranteeing 100 days of wage employment in a year, providing minimum social security cover in terms of health benefits were either already existing or are in the pipeline. She said that the women in India are in the process of shaking the grounds they stand on.

''Inevitably the process is not going to be an easy one since the ground they stand on is made up of the vested interest which have gained dubious legitimacy over centuries in a man's world. But the Indian women are a determined lot to attain their due place in the society,'' she added.

She said that real freedom would be when a women can walk at midnight with her head held high. Freedom from poverty, hunger, disease, abuse and transgression of trade boundaries was required.

UNI