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As part of its
commitment to ensuring equality for women, the Government of
Madhya Pradesh created a separate department of Women and Child
Development in the year 1988. As a step toward fulfilling this
commitment the state formulated a state level policy for women,
becoming the second state in the country to make the effort.
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EMPOWERMENT
OF WOMEN was recognised as the key item on the agenda for
changing iniquitous societal structures and the policy aims at
both empowerment and social and cultural development and
progress. The overall goals of the policy are to ensure the
survival and protection of female life, fullest participation of
women in civil society and strengthening their role in decision
making, empowering women to enable them to take fullest
advantage of developmental efforts in all fields, affirmative
action to ensure women’s full participation in economic
activity, bringing about sensitisation and attitudinal change in
the larger society on women’s issues and prevention of
atrocities and acts of violence against women. These goals were
sought to be achieved by the year 2000 AD.
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Objectives
and Related Strategies
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The
objectives and strategies stated in the policy paper focus on
five basic sectors, such as women’s control over land,
property and common resources and the recognition and support of
women headed households; increase women’s participation in
decision making about common resources and a 30% reservation in
employment as well as ensuring equitable flow of credit to women
in both home based and informal sectors;
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reduction in female
mortality and female malnutrition, protection and development of
the girl child and prevention of abuse and violence against
women; women's visibility in data collection and statistics,
change in systems to incorporate gender desegregated data;
sensitisation programmes for govt functionaries, peoples
representatives; 40% of the total membership of all state
advisory boards and
empowered groups; state laws to be examined.
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Action
in Salient Sectors
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In
the given framework of objectives and strategies, the policy
emphasises on action in certain specific sectors and issues.
These are women and Panchayati Raj, women and land, women and
agriculture, women in the Agricultural allied sectors (Dairy,
animal husbandry, sericulture, pisciculture, horticulture and
floriculture), women and forests, women and Credit, women and
Industry, Migrant women workers, the physical and social
sectors, women and health, women and water, education and the
girl child, women and violence, women and the law.
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The
policy also envisions a state commission for women, a duly
constituted statutory body responsible for the permeation of all
programmes of the Government with a holistic gender approach.
For this purpose the commission is to set up institutional
criteria for evaluation and monitoring of programmes with the
help of a larger constituency of women’ organisations, elected
members of PRIs and other citizen’s fora. It will also take
lead in capacity building of evaluation and monitoring, sharing
of evaluation data with the larger public and gender
sensitisation.
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