Modi forms GOM to examine draft law on equal rights for women
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has constituted a Group of Ministers (GOM) to examine the draft National Policy for Women 2016 which aims at creating a framework to develop policies and programmes to ensure equal rights, resources and opportunities for them.
The GOM comprises 12 union ministers including Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj, Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi (as convenor), Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thaawarchand Gehlot, Minister of Law and Justice Ravishankar Prasad and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley among others, sources said.
The GOM is slated to meet on February 16.
The draft National Policy for Women, 2016, aims at creating a society with women working as equal partners in all spheres of life and developing a framework to ensure equal rights and opportunities to them in the family, community and workplace.
The draft policy, which will replace the National Policy for the Empowerment of Women, 2001, also identifies and describes emerging issues such as making cyber space safe for women, redefining gender roles for reducing unpaid care work among others which impact women.
The draft plans to increase women's participation in political, administration, civil services.
Operational strategies include effective gender institutional mechanisms, legislations, advocacy and stakeholder partnerships, inter-sectoral convergence, gender budgeting and generation of sex disaggregated data.
“The draft policy addresses the diverse needs of women through seven identified priority areas -- health (including food security and nutrition), education, economy (including agriculture, industry, labour, employment, science and technology), governance and decision making, violence against women and environment (including housing, drinking water and sanitation, media and social security).
“In a society with deeprooted cultural and social beliefs about gender roles, a new policy on a rights based approach is needed to create an enabling environment for woman on a life cycle continuum,” said a senior official.