Indian Women Strive For Justice in an Unequal World

Bangalore: Indian women are still languishing in terms of being equal to their male counterparts. An average Indian woman can hardly exercise authority or make decisions at home or outside, says a new report on "Men and Women in India 2012" brought out by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation.

This year women occupied only eight out of 74 ministerial positions in the Union council of ministers. Further, there were only two women judges out of 26 judges in the Supreme Court, and there were only 54 women judges out of 634 judges in different high courts, as reported by Kounteya Sinha for TNN.

It’s not even left up to the women to decide whether they can go to a doctor or pop a pill. Married women living in rural areas take 26 percent of the decisions with regard to obtaining healthcare for themselves and 7.6 percent for purchasing major household items. Barely 10 percent decisions are taken by females regarding visiting their family or relatives.

The scenario isn’t very great for urban women either. Urban women recorded for 29.7 percent decisions regarding access to healthcare and 10.4 percent for buying major household items. It was noted that 12.2 percent can decide whether to visit family and friends. As per the report 46 percent of women aged between 15-19 years of age are not involved in any kind of decision making. Further, about 40 percent women have no access to money.

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