Reliable Information
Content
The Vision of the Ministry of women and child Development are empowered
women living with dignity and contributing as equal partners in development
in an environment free from violence and discrimination, and, well-nurtured
children with full opportunities for growth and development in a safe and
protective environment.
The Ministry wants to promote social and economic empowerment of women
through cross-cutting policies and programmes, mainstream gender
concerns, create awareness about their rights and facilitate institutional and
legislative support for enabling them to realise their human rights and
develop to their full potential.
The main objectives of the Ministry are
1 Laying the foundation for development of children below 6 years with a
focus on Supplementary Nutrition and pre-school, non-formal education and
to enhance the awareness and capability of mothers for nutritional and
health needs of the child;
2 Empowering adolescent girls (11-18 years) through nutrition, health care
and life skills education;
3 Providing a safe and secure environment for overall development of
children who are in need of care and protection and children in conflict with
law;
4 Promoting the rights based approach in the foundation of policy for
children;
5 Promoting an environment free from violence and discrimination against
women as well as socio-economic empowerment of marginalized women;
6 Mainstreaming gender concerns in the policies and programmes of
different Ministries/Departments of Government of India & State
Governments through gender budgeting.
The Ministry through its functions also frames and implements legislation,
policies, programmes and schemes for social and economic empowerment of
women, protection and development of children. To achieve the main
objectives and missions, this Ministry is implementing various schemes on
ground level. Some of the major programmes initiatives that the ministry has
taken related to women and children are re as follows:
Women related major programmes/schemes:
1
i)BetiBachao, BetiPadhao (BBBP) to celebrate the girl child and enable
her education.
ii) Sabla-Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls, aims to
improve health status, iii) Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana
(IGMSY) to fulfill individual specific conditions; iv) National Mission for
Empowerment of Women (NMEW), to address issues related to
empowerment of women.
i) One Stop Centre Scheme in each State to provide support and
assistance to women affected by violence, ii) Universalisation Women
Helpline(181) Scheme to provide 24 hours emergency and non-emergency
responses to women affected by violence iii)Expansion of Women’s
Hostels, Swadhar Grehs and Ujjawala; Working Women Hostels to
provide safe and affordable hostel accommodation for working women,
prevent trafficking and providing quality services to the beneficiaries;iv)
Rashtriya Mahila Koshto to empower poor women through micro financing
and credit, and, v)STEP (Support to Training & Employment
Programme for Women)Scheme to improve employability of women..
Children related major Programmes/schemes:
i) ICDS: To develop children below 6 years with a focus on supplementary
nutrition and pre-school, non-formal education; and to enhance the
awareness and capability of mothers for nutritional and health needs of the
child.This Programme is India’s primary response to the nutritional and
developmental needs of the children below six years, pregnant women and
nursing mothers.
ii) The Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS): to build a protective
environment for children in difficult circumstances, with the objectives of
protecting them and preventing harm. Also to provide a safe and secure
environment for overall development of children who are in need of care and
protection and children in conflict with law.
Existing data and sources:
The indicators related to different schemes of MWCD can be put in the
following heads:
i) Related to mother and child:
Major Schemes: ICDS and ICPS:
Indicators: Nutrition, health, pre-school non-formal education, Immunization,
vulnerable children and children in conflict with law.
2
Data availability,
SRS(Sample Registration System) provides Data on under five MR,TFR, MMR
etc.
NFHS provides estimates for underweight children, stunted children, and
institutional deliveries and other women and child related indicators. Ministry
of home affairs and state Administration provides data on missing children
and children in conflict with law.
Data gaps:
NFHS based indicators have long periodicity, SRS results are mainly for larger
states and not below state level. MMR estimates are available after a period
of three years. Administrative records
of MHA and Sates are always
underestimated due to non-reporting and various other reasons.
Administrative records do not generally get updated. Though Monthly Data
collected by Anganwadi Workers(AWW) and put into different registers are
supposed to give various data as mentioned above , but authenticity of data
can be challenged. Ministry of Home affairs and State Administrations data
related to child under conflict with law is not periodic, under estimated and
do not capture the information
ii) Related to women:
Major Schemes: IGMSY, BBBP, SABLA, STEP:
Indicators: Child Sex Ratio(CSR), Sex Ratio at Birth(SRB), empowering
adolescent girls (11-18 years) through nutrition, health care and life skills,
education, training and capacity building
Data availability:
U-DISE, Population Census (Decadal) provides information on attainment of
education and School related indicators. NSSO through its survey also
provides after a gap of quite a number of years information on certain
indicators of skill development, education, health etc. NFHS provides
nutrition data. However the issue of concern is lack of Standardisation.
Data gaps:
Indicators like Mean Years of Schooling And Expected Years of Schooling are
not readily available. Regular data on SRB is required for proper monitoring
and policy making, which can be made available from the demographic
profiles captured in large scale household consumer survey by NSS.Coverage
of the sheme of the Ministry is limited, therefore data captured through
monitoring of these schemes may not be reliable for policy making.
3
Schemes related to Distressed woman and implementation of
different laws
Scheme: One Stop Centre, Women Helpline, UJJWALA, Short Stay Home for
Women and Girls. All these schemes can be put into in one head that is
Human Rights Violation against Women and the data related to violence
against women, trafficking, abandoned women and their protection
Data availability:
National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), of Ministry of Home Affairs is the
Nodal Agency for providing data on the above related issues. ‘ Crime in India’
brought out by NCRB provides data on (i) cases registered and their disposal
and (ii) persons arrested and their disposal under major heads of Indian
Penal Codes and Special and Local Laws. (Age-group-wise and sex-wise
details). The status of crime against some vulnerable sections of the society women, children, Scheduled Castes / Scheduled Tribes is also available.
Data gaps and other related issues:
There is large extent of non-reporting/ recording of crime and they are not
reliable as there are systemic biases, errors due to overlaps between
different sections of IPC, outreach to vulnerable (women, children). There is
no structured procedure for identification of new types of crime/ offences for
collection of statistics thereon. No statistics are available for the entire
gamut of non-cognizable offences which are very important for knowing the
crime situation in the society in its entirety and having desired interventions
in place. Difficult to measure Crimes related to cross border trafficking
Reliable information on this sector and core outcomes arising from the
implementation of various schemes, lies at the core of decision-making and
policy formulation for the empowerment of women and protection of child.
All related aspects of the issues of women and children – governance and
regulation, service delivery, human resources, financing etc.– requires
effective monitoring for using results to improve performance and service
delivery. Such capabilities to measure and monitor the development issues of
women and children– involving inputs and processes; outputs, outcomes and
impact are central to accountability and enable decision makers to track
progress, performance and evaluate impact of their policies.
The gender equality is a major priority in development interventions due to
the direct impact gender-sensitive policies have on economic development,
4
higher education achievement, and better quality of life in a country. The
need to measure the progress of Govt. interventions and maintain gender
equality as a main concern is increasing. Women’s empowerment, forms a
basis to foster growth, reduce poverty, and promote better governance.We
can categorize women’s empowerment in different dimensions, for example,
economic contribution, education, governance, health, and media
As we have seen that there are various estsblished indicators and data
sources to know the development trend of women and protection of child.
However, women’s empowerment is a vast field with a myriad of indicators.
The dimensions of women’s empowerment can mainly be categorized as
economic contribution, education, government, health, and media.
The dimension of economic contribution describes women’s empowerment,
Market participation, explains women’s influence on global and local markets
by focusing on gender equality and its relationship to remuneration, and
limitations on market involvement. Indicators in the market participation can
include income distribution, which demonstrates women’s financial and
economic power; workforce composition, which includes labor and
entrepreneurial opportunities for women; and productivity contribution,
which describes women’s production level in formal and informal
markets.The data for this indicator can be measured through
Macrolevel
Indicators e.g., aggregate consumption, savings, and investments which can
also quantify widespread gender-based differences, and Disparities between
urban and rural populations
Indicators of education are among the most important measures of women’s
status and gender equity. Education equips girls and women with knowledge
to make informed decisions about their everyday lives. A mother’s education
influences her children more than the father’s in terms of securing
resources .With higher levels of education, women tend to have lower fertility
rates, improved nutrition, and increased use of health services for
themselves and their children. Additionally, education serves as a predictor
of better employment opportunities because educated women participate
more in the labor force and earn higher incomes. We have established
indicators like the number of students and teachers, percentages, rates,
ratios, absolute gender gap, and gender parity index which, however fail to
capture the absolute level of achievement. However, we can also develop
some gender-sensitive education indicators like levels of access to education
(sex wise) and the school infrastructure facilities friendly to girls, percentage
of female teachers, quantification of progress and quality education to girl
children, etc. All these indicators along with the established ones can really
reflect the status of women empower ment in our country.
5
Although women’s empowerment improved with the implementation of
gender sensitive policies, the governance still staggers behind other
dimensions. With increasing awareness of the political importance of gendersensitive economic development and policy reform, decision makers are
starting to give considerable attention to the role women play in politics.
Overall, women’s participation in the decision-making process is critical
when assessing women’s empowerment, gender equality, and other
developmental goals. The concept of women’s empowerment is embedded in
protection of women’s rights, which has political and legal implications. The
indicator depicting the percentage of women in government Positions,
corporate sector, urban and local bodies, the seats held by women in
parliament, track women’s participation and political empowerment over
time. However, we should develop indicator quantifying confidence levels of
people in policies/legislations formed with the involvement of women.
Health is a determinant of a population’s well-being, labor market
participation, worker productivity, savings, and fertility. As a key component
for strong human capital, research shows that health directly influences
economic growth and development. Women’s health affects both individual
household and national economic welfare due to gender roles. A woman’s
ability to lead a healthy and productive life is crucial for a country’s wellbeing. In general, women tend to live longer than men and have lower
mortality rates than men at any age, but this trend does not imply that
women are healthier or better able to access health-care resources. Mortality
rates reveal extreme damages to health and do not take into account other,
large health differences
between men and women. Additionally, women often take care of children
and prepare meals. To fulfill these important duties and ensure well-being of
their families, women must be physically well and knowledgeable about
health. Broader changes can occur in the country if we improve women’s
abilities to make decisions regarding childbearing, childrearing, sexual
relations, and use of contraceptives. Along with the established indicators,
we could also develop indicators like Causes of death among women
revealing major health problems, treatment for diseases as it varies between
men and women, access to money and insurance, and knowledge of
health systems.
The media are a channel to examine the right to freedom of opinion and
expression. This right and the ability to exercise it should not be contingent
on gender. For empowerment efforts to be successful, women must be able
to exercise their rights in the same manner and to the same extent as their
male counterparts. Yet, being able to exercise a universally declared human
right is insufficient for empowerment. Allowing women access to
communication systems, such as media, does not guarantee that their
opinions will be expressed equally or that their participation in the media will
6
be mainstreamed: stereotyping and alienation of women by the media are
still remarkably widespread phenomena. The main categories in the media
dimension are equal expression of
freedom of speech, equal coverage in news reporting, and equal treatment of media
employees.We have to develop suitable indicators in this unexplored area.
7
women living with dignity and contributing as equal partners in development
in an environment free from violence and discrimination, and, well-nurtured
children with full opportunities for growth and development in a safe and
protective environment.
The Ministry wants to promote social and economic empowerment of women
through cross-cutting policies and programmes, mainstream gender
concerns, create awareness about their rights and facilitate institutional and
legislative support for enabling them to realise their human rights and
develop to their full potential.
The main objectives of the Ministry are
1 Laying the foundation for development of children below 6 years with a
focus on Supplementary Nutrition and pre-school, non-formal education and
to enhance the awareness and capability of mothers for nutritional and
health needs of the child;
2 Empowering adolescent girls (11-18 years) through nutrition, health care
and life skills education;
3 Providing a safe and secure environment for overall development of
children who are in need of care and protection and children in conflict with
law;
4 Promoting the rights based approach in the foundation of policy for
children;
5 Promoting an environment free from violence and discrimination against
women as well as socio-economic empowerment of marginalized women;
6 Mainstreaming gender concerns in the policies and programmes of
different Ministries/Departments of Government of India & State
Governments through gender budgeting.
The Ministry through its functions also frames and implements legislation,
policies, programmes and schemes for social and economic empowerment of
women, protection and development of children. To achieve the main
objectives and missions, this Ministry is implementing various schemes on
ground level. Some of the major programmes initiatives that the ministry has
taken related to women and children are re as follows:
Women related major programmes/schemes:
1
i)BetiBachao, BetiPadhao (BBBP) to celebrate the girl child and enable
her education.
ii) Sabla-Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls, aims to
improve health status, iii) Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana
(IGMSY) to fulfill individual specific conditions; iv) National Mission for
Empowerment of Women (NMEW), to address issues related to
empowerment of women.
i) One Stop Centre Scheme in each State to provide support and
assistance to women affected by violence, ii) Universalisation Women
Helpline(181) Scheme to provide 24 hours emergency and non-emergency
responses to women affected by violence iii)Expansion of Women’s
Hostels, Swadhar Grehs and Ujjawala; Working Women Hostels to
provide safe and affordable hostel accommodation for working women,
prevent trafficking and providing quality services to the beneficiaries;iv)
Rashtriya Mahila Koshto to empower poor women through micro financing
and credit, and, v)STEP (Support to Training & Employment
Programme for Women)Scheme to improve employability of women..
Children related major Programmes/schemes:
i) ICDS: To develop children below 6 years with a focus on supplementary
nutrition and pre-school, non-formal education; and to enhance the
awareness and capability of mothers for nutritional and health needs of the
child.This Programme is India’s primary response to the nutritional and
developmental needs of the children below six years, pregnant women and
nursing mothers.
ii) The Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS): to build a protective
environment for children in difficult circumstances, with the objectives of
protecting them and preventing harm. Also to provide a safe and secure
environment for overall development of children who are in need of care and
protection and children in conflict with law.
Existing data and sources:
The indicators related to different schemes of MWCD can be put in the
following heads:
i) Related to mother and child:
Major Schemes: ICDS and ICPS:
Indicators: Nutrition, health, pre-school non-formal education, Immunization,
vulnerable children and children in conflict with law.
2
Data availability,
SRS(Sample Registration System) provides Data on under five MR,TFR, MMR
etc.
NFHS provides estimates for underweight children, stunted children, and
institutional deliveries and other women and child related indicators. Ministry
of home affairs and state Administration provides data on missing children
and children in conflict with law.
Data gaps:
NFHS based indicators have long periodicity, SRS results are mainly for larger
states and not below state level. MMR estimates are available after a period
of three years. Administrative records
of MHA and Sates are always
underestimated due to non-reporting and various other reasons.
Administrative records do not generally get updated. Though Monthly Data
collected by Anganwadi Workers(AWW) and put into different registers are
supposed to give various data as mentioned above , but authenticity of data
can be challenged. Ministry of Home affairs and State Administrations data
related to child under conflict with law is not periodic, under estimated and
do not capture the information
ii) Related to women:
Major Schemes: IGMSY, BBBP, SABLA, STEP:
Indicators: Child Sex Ratio(CSR), Sex Ratio at Birth(SRB), empowering
adolescent girls (11-18 years) through nutrition, health care and life skills,
education, training and capacity building
Data availability:
U-DISE, Population Census (Decadal) provides information on attainment of
education and School related indicators. NSSO through its survey also
provides after a gap of quite a number of years information on certain
indicators of skill development, education, health etc. NFHS provides
nutrition data. However the issue of concern is lack of Standardisation.
Data gaps:
Indicators like Mean Years of Schooling And Expected Years of Schooling are
not readily available. Regular data on SRB is required for proper monitoring
and policy making, which can be made available from the demographic
profiles captured in large scale household consumer survey by NSS.Coverage
of the sheme of the Ministry is limited, therefore data captured through
monitoring of these schemes may not be reliable for policy making.
3
Schemes related to Distressed woman and implementation of
different laws
Scheme: One Stop Centre, Women Helpline, UJJWALA, Short Stay Home for
Women and Girls. All these schemes can be put into in one head that is
Human Rights Violation against Women and the data related to violence
against women, trafficking, abandoned women and their protection
Data availability:
National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), of Ministry of Home Affairs is the
Nodal Agency for providing data on the above related issues. ‘ Crime in India’
brought out by NCRB provides data on (i) cases registered and their disposal
and (ii) persons arrested and their disposal under major heads of Indian
Penal Codes and Special and Local Laws. (Age-group-wise and sex-wise
details). The status of crime against some vulnerable sections of the society women, children, Scheduled Castes / Scheduled Tribes is also available.
Data gaps and other related issues:
There is large extent of non-reporting/ recording of crime and they are not
reliable as there are systemic biases, errors due to overlaps between
different sections of IPC, outreach to vulnerable (women, children). There is
no structured procedure for identification of new types of crime/ offences for
collection of statistics thereon. No statistics are available for the entire
gamut of non-cognizable offences which are very important for knowing the
crime situation in the society in its entirety and having desired interventions
in place. Difficult to measure Crimes related to cross border trafficking
Reliable information on this sector and core outcomes arising from the
implementation of various schemes, lies at the core of decision-making and
policy formulation for the empowerment of women and protection of child.
All related aspects of the issues of women and children – governance and
regulation, service delivery, human resources, financing etc.– requires
effective monitoring for using results to improve performance and service
delivery. Such capabilities to measure and monitor the development issues of
women and children– involving inputs and processes; outputs, outcomes and
impact are central to accountability and enable decision makers to track
progress, performance and evaluate impact of their policies.
The gender equality is a major priority in development interventions due to
the direct impact gender-sensitive policies have on economic development,
4
higher education achievement, and better quality of life in a country. The
need to measure the progress of Govt. interventions and maintain gender
equality as a main concern is increasing. Women’s empowerment, forms a
basis to foster growth, reduce poverty, and promote better governance.We
can categorize women’s empowerment in different dimensions, for example,
economic contribution, education, governance, health, and media
As we have seen that there are various estsblished indicators and data
sources to know the development trend of women and protection of child.
However, women’s empowerment is a vast field with a myriad of indicators.
The dimensions of women’s empowerment can mainly be categorized as
economic contribution, education, government, health, and media.
The dimension of economic contribution describes women’s empowerment,
Market participation, explains women’s influence on global and local markets
by focusing on gender equality and its relationship to remuneration, and
limitations on market involvement. Indicators in the market participation can
include income distribution, which demonstrates women’s financial and
economic power; workforce composition, which includes labor and
entrepreneurial opportunities for women; and productivity contribution,
which describes women’s production level in formal and informal
markets.The data for this indicator can be measured through
Macrolevel
Indicators e.g., aggregate consumption, savings, and investments which can
also quantify widespread gender-based differences, and Disparities between
urban and rural populations
Indicators of education are among the most important measures of women’s
status and gender equity. Education equips girls and women with knowledge
to make informed decisions about their everyday lives. A mother’s education
influences her children more than the father’s in terms of securing
resources .With higher levels of education, women tend to have lower fertility
rates, improved nutrition, and increased use of health services for
themselves and their children. Additionally, education serves as a predictor
of better employment opportunities because educated women participate
more in the labor force and earn higher incomes. We have established
indicators like the number of students and teachers, percentages, rates,
ratios, absolute gender gap, and gender parity index which, however fail to
capture the absolute level of achievement. However, we can also develop
some gender-sensitive education indicators like levels of access to education
(sex wise) and the school infrastructure facilities friendly to girls, percentage
of female teachers, quantification of progress and quality education to girl
children, etc. All these indicators along with the established ones can really
reflect the status of women empower ment in our country.
5
Although women’s empowerment improved with the implementation of
gender sensitive policies, the governance still staggers behind other
dimensions. With increasing awareness of the political importance of gendersensitive economic development and policy reform, decision makers are
starting to give considerable attention to the role women play in politics.
Overall, women’s participation in the decision-making process is critical
when assessing women’s empowerment, gender equality, and other
developmental goals. The concept of women’s empowerment is embedded in
protection of women’s rights, which has political and legal implications. The
indicator depicting the percentage of women in government Positions,
corporate sector, urban and local bodies, the seats held by women in
parliament, track women’s participation and political empowerment over
time. However, we should develop indicator quantifying confidence levels of
people in policies/legislations formed with the involvement of women.
Health is a determinant of a population’s well-being, labor market
participation, worker productivity, savings, and fertility. As a key component
for strong human capital, research shows that health directly influences
economic growth and development. Women’s health affects both individual
household and national economic welfare due to gender roles. A woman’s
ability to lead a healthy and productive life is crucial for a country’s wellbeing. In general, women tend to live longer than men and have lower
mortality rates than men at any age, but this trend does not imply that
women are healthier or better able to access health-care resources. Mortality
rates reveal extreme damages to health and do not take into account other,
large health differences
between men and women. Additionally, women often take care of children
and prepare meals. To fulfill these important duties and ensure well-being of
their families, women must be physically well and knowledgeable about
health. Broader changes can occur in the country if we improve women’s
abilities to make decisions regarding childbearing, childrearing, sexual
relations, and use of contraceptives. Along with the established indicators,
we could also develop indicators like Causes of death among women
revealing major health problems, treatment for diseases as it varies between
men and women, access to money and insurance, and knowledge of
health systems.
The media are a channel to examine the right to freedom of opinion and
expression. This right and the ability to exercise it should not be contingent
on gender. For empowerment efforts to be successful, women must be able
to exercise their rights in the same manner and to the same extent as their
male counterparts. Yet, being able to exercise a universally declared human
right is insufficient for empowerment. Allowing women access to
communication systems, such as media, does not guarantee that their
opinions will be expressed equally or that their participation in the media will
6
be mainstreamed: stereotyping and alienation of women by the media are
still remarkably widespread phenomena. The main categories in the media
dimension are equal expression of
freedom of speech, equal coverage in news reporting, and equal treatment of media
employees.We have to develop suitable indicators in this unexplored area.
7
