Social Issues [GS Mains]

[Lisbeth Salander]

Came across a good website on Women Empowerment . Relevant links are given below :

Violence Against Women in India
Crime Against Women in India
Status of Women in India
Women Rights in India
Women Education in India

[Lisbeth Salander]

Women of Protected Tribe sterilised

• The Baiga tribe is among the most primitive in central India, confined to just a few forested hamlets in the border districts of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Although the government has spent several crores on schemes for their welfare, they continue to be among the most deprived communities.
• While the administrative machinery rarely reaches these villages, health workers arrive to herd the Baiga women to the sterilisation camps, not sparing even those who are grandmothers. The women don’t know that they have been notified as a protected tribe and their sterilisation is prohibited. All of them claimed that they had not received any cash incentive for undergoing the operation, as mandated by the government.

IE

For further info. on the Baiga tribe, please refer mptribalmuseum.com/tribes-baiga.html .

[Don Quixote]

The irony is that I've to "like" the post to indicate that I am sad to read it

[Lisbeth Salander]

Nov 18, 2014 14:25:36 GMT 5.5 Don Quixote said:

The irony is that I've to "like" the post to indicate that I am sad to read it

It was heart-wrenching to see the pics of children of the women who died. Initially when I'd read this news I assumed it was 'one of those' administrative failures. But during my study of Verrier Elwin I came across his study of Baiga tribes and realized the gravity of the situation.

[Lisbeth Salander]

The key component of all health services under the National Rural Health Mission, the prime “motivator” for sterilisation camps, is the ASHA (accredited social health activist), a locally recruited woman. Preferably literate, she is trained to service her community, particularly women and children, and help them get access to health services. It is notable that the ASHA is not paid a regular salary. But for motivating and accompanying women to sterilisation camps, she receives a “performance-based incentive” — Rs 150 per “case”. The amount, one learns, was recently increased. The doctor, anaesthetist and nurses are all paid cash incentives. It is not hard to see how this may be a big “motivator” for the medical teams, which are in such a hurry to perform a record number of sterilisations that they forego basic safety norms. The doctor supervising the nefarious Chhattisgarh camp was allegedly awarded Rs 50,000 for the record number of surgeries he performed in a day. But obviously, nothing was spent on the creation or maintenance of medical facilities for patients.

Vasectomies are considered infinitely less risky than tubectomies, but men, wary of “losing” their maleness, remain a minuscule proportion of the adults coming to sterilisation camps. The burden for limiting births all over India falls on women. Though, when they do undergo sterilisation, men are given more compensation than women.

No one will deny that there is huge unmet demand for family planning in India. Nor that handing money to poor patients for food and lost workdays is not a bad idea. But what the poor really want is access to basic healthcare, education and other opportunities. There is certainly a place for sterilisation as a method of limiting the size of families, but the poor also have to be given other options. When they do opt for a terminal method like sterilisation, the procedure must be carried out without pressure and with the full knowledge and consent of the patient, under safe circumstances. Only then can sterilisation be considered a powerful tool for reproductive freedom.

Excerpts from IE