563.11
Women Empowerment and Reproductive Rights
The historic convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (CEDAW) was followed by fourth world conference in Beijing in 1995. It was accepted that substantive equality for women is essential. Beijing platform for action (BPFA) was a commitment by nations towards the advancement of the cause of women’s movement and also to eradicate all kinds of gender discrimination. Inspite of the fact that being signatories to various international treaties and conventions little has been done at the grass root level for the empowerment of women.
In Indian context women have been facing many problems of gender discrimination, violence, disempowerment and are not aware of their reproductive rights that includes the right to health care, the right not to be subjected to violence, discrimination, the right to determine the number of children and their spacing and to be free from ill-treatment and sexual violence. Reproductive rights are founded on a number of international agreements including human rights documents.
Objectives –
- To study the awareness of reproductive rights among women.
- To analyze socio, economic, cultural factors influencing reproductive rights.
- To analyze the attitude of educated women towards reproductive health and its dimensions.
- To assess the implementation of reproductive rights and women empowerment.
The paper comes up with solutions and awareness programs which should be taken to protect reproductive rights for the equality, dignity and empowerment of women.
The study is being conducted in Varanasi city, one of the oldest cities of the world and full of old traditions and cultural values. I have selected 100 graduate women from different fields. I have also adopted case study method and selected 10 working women. Interview Schedule is used for the study.