Indian NGOs talk about efforts towards women’s empowerment, gender equality at UNHRC

The Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from India on Tuesday talked about the country’s efforts towards women empowerment and gender equality at the 54th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Speaking during the UN’s Annual discussion on the ‘Integration of a Gender Perspective’, Parmita Sharma, social activist and founder of Akshar Foundation, said they believe the goals of poverty eradication and gender equality go hand in hand.

 “To achieve the goal of equal integration of women’s perspective in the human rights council and other UN bodies, and in government more broadly, we need a stronger focus on girls’ education,” she added. 

She said that Akshar’s model school of poverty eradication measures to increase literacy and employability among underprivileged girls, two of the main factors that contribute to gender discrimination in underprivileged communities.

“With vocational training in nursing, tailoring, teaching, electronics repair, combined with apprenticeships to professionals, we can ensure girls secure gainful livelihoods and the ability to provide for themselves and their families,” Parmita told the United Nations.

Meanwhile, a side event was also organised by Rajasthan Samgrah Kalyan Sansthan (RSKS) to highlight approaches to development and achieving SDGs with a theme titled “Ensuring Gender Equitable Practices at Every Place through SAMATVA. 

“At UNHRC we have shown the new campaign known as Samatva which means equitable practices. It means every girl and woman should have equal opportunities at every business and every government house or at every workplace so that the women and girls would be working from top to bottom level and it will ensure that equitable practices are followed all around the world,” Hansraj Singh, Communication manager of Rajasthan Samgrah Kalyan Sansthan was quoted as saying by news agency ANI. 

“We also showed a Samadhwa logo which could be followed by everyone like the workplaces which are showing equitable practices, they could adapt our Samadhva logo which could mean that they are following Equitable practices and women are giving priority,” he added. 

Elaborating on India’s efforts towards women empowerment, Shweta Tyagi, Chief functionary of India Water Foundation said that all the developments taking place in India for the past decade have been women-led. 

Tyagi further said, “All the developments that are happening right now in India for the past decade are women-led. All the development that is happening, whether you look at the Ujjwala Yojana or other schemes that have been brought out in India, they are all women-led. So I think this is something that we should showcase at every platform that India is a country which is to make a lot for women and every of their development is women-led.” 

Notably, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk also welcomed the passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill in India, which will reserve one-third of seats in national and state parliaments for women.

(With inputs from ANI)