Human rights violation- pertaining to discrimination of women.
Abstract: -
In this paper, we will be seeing the different types of human rights violations that are faced by women in India. The issue is not a simple issue. It is one of the most concerning issues in the country right now. All forms include discrimination based on pay, discrimination based on personal and work life, facing sexual harassment. Now, this is very subjective discrimination but since this does happen in the workplace it is included as well. After all, the CEDAW says it should eliminate all forms of discrimination which includes sexual harassment. Before going into detail about each discrimination faced by women and the statistics it is better to get an idea of what this is. Discrimination faced by women is not a recent issue. This is an issue that has been going on for more than a decade.
The first issue that will be discussed is the main form of discrimination which is them Being minorities. It is not surprising news that women are minorities compared to men and it will not be told that there is not one company that does not do that, but this shadow report is to talk about companies that have the problem after all that happens in the majority of the companies. Like Muslims and Christians are minorities of the country, Women are the minorities of the company. It is very rare to see women be in a higher position in the company and it cannot be told that women were not capable of handling it after all the vice president of the U.S is from one of the smallest towns in south India. When something like that can happen then it cannot be denied that women being able to work for a higher position is not possible. So that cannot be used as the argument to say women are having low pay because of this. For example, when a woman gives an idea that is genuinely a good idea it would be ignored but when the same idea is put forward by a man it would be accepted. As per a report, only 12% of the board all over India in the corporate field is filled by women.
The next issue is obvious and cannot be ignored which is the pay gap. It is one of the most known issues all over the world. It is self-explanatory. The pay gap between women and men is different. Women earn less than men in that same position. The reasons that are justified for giving women low pay are not very convincing either. This is because of the general reservations in the mind of the higher-ups. People generally think that seeing that men can work even after working hours is not possible with women. Another reason is that women being in such a higher position is not advisable because the culture that used to be followed was after marriage women leave the job and when they get pregnant, they leave the job. But the defense for that is when people believe that something non-living like technology can evolve then why can’t people believe that someone who is living and capable of contributing to society can evolve? The statistic shows that the only 3% of the companies are struggling with the pay gap but more than 50% of women are facing the problem in the government side. What is ironic is that the government gives priority to people rather than the private company. As for the statistical figures, Women earn 19% less than men in the working sector.
The Next issue is a subjective one, Sexual harassment faced by women in the workplace. As per the Union of India sexual harassment is considered sexual discrimination. The pay gap, getting treated as minorities are obviously discrimination but to not this extent. Getting physically or implicitly assaulted is not a small form of discrimination. It raids their personal space more than anything. These acts cannot be stopped by women because of the fear of getting removed from the job, fear of the reprisal of the harasser, losing one’s livelihood, and obviously losing their reputation. This creates an insecure and hostile work environment, which discourages women’s participation in work, this also adversely affects the work of the women or the performance of their efficiency. Excluding the year 2020 because of the pandemic, the statistics of 2019 were taken, and it was found out that there was a rise by 14% in sexual harassment cases in the workplace.
The next issue is gender biases. It is true that this issue is like the issue of being treated as minorities but it's only similar not the same. Gender biases are when they face unfair disadvantage compared with other people mainly men. It has become a notion that since women have to take care of the family and take maternal leave and other reasons, they are naturally weak. But this NGO feels that, would that not be the reason to prove that women are strong. Since the people think otherwise it leads to a lack of motivation and that also leads to low performance. That in turn gives lower opportunities to women. But isn’t that a cause and effect rather than a women’s problem? In the data that was collected, there were various reasons for discrimination faced by both men and women but all the reasons which were given by men were faced by the women but not the other way around.
The next issue to tackle is where the women even when they go to court, do not get justice, or do not face the right verdict. This does cause a problem in the end because if it does not go right then she faces a lot of problems in the workplace because she is fighting with her reputation and life on the line. In the vishaka case the lady was a social worker and she faced sexual harassment for stopping child marriage and when she went to court the accused were first acquitted and later in the supreme court they got convicted. The question that would like to be put forth by the NGO is that why is that court even existing if they are not able to give the right verdict. Sadly, there are many more unaccounted cases that could not be found. The point of this issue is that when women are not confident with the law then where will they be able to go?
The next issue is the tackled one. i.e., the issues which were discriminating women but now the cases arising out of these reasons are low. Some of these are child marriages, sati, not allowing them to work, and so on. The reason for this was because using this as the point would like to say that men in olden times were brought up in a way that said men are superior to women and women should only listen to them. This in turn also was how women were brought up and only due to some women at those times there are changes now. Since at those times the statistics were not as true to the fact and efficient as possible. For this point, the statistics are not going to be provided to avoid false information.
This paragraph would like to show the statistics in detail. As told before about the board members, it is as low as 3.2% for leadership positions and this also reduced the point of being a role model to people. Which created a lot of issues? As per the statistics, it showed that men earned 46 Rs. More than women per hour. As a gross total if men earn 242 Rs. Then women earn only 196 Rs. As a small number, it might seem like a small difference but if it is calculated the difference becomes huge. The sexual harassment cases showed a huge spike in comparison to the year before. In 2018 there was a 26% complaint rate but in 2019 it became 33%. In 2020 there was only a marginal difference even with the pandemic situation it did not reduce much. This shows that the sexual harassment cases are not a light issue and prove the weightage of the points put forward by the NGO. Using the system of various methods to find the gender biases (meanings can be found in the site mentioned below.) it was found that the cases proved that the gender bias is at an all-time high.
Solutions
Hence, India is urged to: -
a) Undertake all means to treat women equally in the workplace in the government sector.
b) Undertake all means to carry out an impartial investigation and remunerate the victim's right.
c) Undertake all means to prevent all means of discrimination against women in the workplace.
d) Take steps to come up with a proper and separate law that helps women and makes it available for the country.
e) Be transparent in these sorts of issues so that it will also make the citizens feel at ease at how well it's improving.
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