Coporates must empower women through forward linkages: Renuka

New Delhi, Jul 23 (UNI) Minister for Women and Child Development Renuka Choudhary today exhorted corporates to devise programmes for the empowerment of women through forward-linkages to business opportunities.

Inaugurating the 'Save the Girl Child&Adopt a Village' CSR initiatives in the silver jubilee year of the FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO), Ms Choudhary said that as more and more women come into the mainstream of development through education, industry would have to come forward and empower them economically so that they could hold their own in society and live a life of dignity and self-respect, free from discrimination.

The Minister urged the industrial community to give a larger space to women in jobs by giving them longer maternity leave and allowing them to do productive work out of home. FLO, she said, could influence the industry to initiate such programmes for women and help realize their full potential.

The scourge of female foeticide has assumed alarming proportions in India. In the past two decades, Indian families have eliminated over eight million girls. The next Census in 2011, is likely to reveal that the annual number of girls eliminated is around a million.In the absence of effective actions, India will become the country with the largest number of girls eliminated before birth, exceeding China in the coming decade! Ms Anuradha Goel, President, FLO, pointed out that the 'Save the Girl Child' campaign was being launched throughout the country in association with the Ministry of Women and Child Development. The programme will be conducted in factories, corporations, and villages by experts in the field to educate the workforce on the detrimental impact on society and civilisation as a whole if babies, male and female, are not considered equal.

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