As the first female President of Chile, between 2006 and 2010, Michelle Bachelet, United Nations (UN) Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of UN Women, is an idol for women’s rights.
On her maiden visit to India after taking charge as the first Executive Director of UN Women, Bachelet applauded the progressive legislations and initiatives of the Indian Government, such as the Sexual Harassment Bill, the Domestic Violence Act, and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act that guarantees equal pay for equal work.
However, she said there was an urgent need to implement these laws so that women at all levels could reap the benefits.
Appreciating the Government’s efforts to empower women by demarking a quota at the level of gram panchayats, which has resulted in women occupying 40 per cent of seats in local bodies, Bachelet said, “Empowering women, politically and economically, is important, but that is not enough.”
She raised concerns over unskilled women being left behind in the Indian economy. “Today women’s workforce participation is only 22 per cent in India, and with increasing demand on skilled labour, unskilled women are being left behind. With the global food and financial crises, UN Women advocates for greater investments in the farm sectors, especially since 79 per cent of rural women workers in India are in agriculture.”
On the bias against women, which manifests itself in female foeticide and human trafficking, Bachelet said the problem lay in the patriarchal mindset where women were seen as objects, not as people with voices. She added that female foeticide, resulting in skewed sex ratios, was even being recognised as a security issue in many countries.
Bachelet said flesh trade was the third largest ‘industry’ in terms of the money it generated, after drugs and guns.
She said India and other countries needed to develop social protection mechanisms to ensure the well-being of its people. “If a family is not living in poverty maybe they would not ‘sell’ their daughters or marry them off early.”
The UN women, set up in July 2010, has five priority areas — increasing women’s leadership and participation; ending violence against women; engaging women in all aspects of peace and security processes; enhancing women’s economic empowerment; and making gender equality central to national development planning and budgeting.