Krishna Tirath, Minister of State (IC) for Women & Child Development inaugurated a two-day Conference on ‘Issues & Challenges for Development of Scheduled Tribe Women & Children’ in New Delhi May 30. The Conference organized by the Ministry of Women & Child Development on 30th and 31st May at Vigyan Bhawan, is the second in a series of conferences on specific social groups of women. The first one was held on issues & challenges for development of Scheduled Caste women and children in January this year.
The Secretary, Women and Child Development, Shri D. K. Sikri in his welcome remarks emphasized that the planning processes need to provide for specific social groups to ensure inclusive growth. Smt. Krishna Tirath in her inaugural address drew attention to the fact that tribals lagged behind in most social indicators be it poverty, health or literacy and ST women and children were lagging behind even further. She stressed the need to focus on ST women and children during framing of tribal policies and budgets, and emphasized on the need to review the effectiveness of Tribal Sub Plan approach for reaching out to them. The National Programmes like MNREGA, ICDS, NRHM, and SSA have been all universalized and have the potential to address concerns of tribals and tribal areas. Smt. Krishna Tirath stressed the need to strengthen the coverage of tribal women and children under these programmes. She also mentioned the need to focus on issues of tribals related to forest rights, land alienation and distress migration with a gender perspective. Most importantly for curtailing the distress migration she highlighted the need to deal with concerns of migrant women workers through smart cards and registration of migrants by Panchayati Raj Institutions at the source and by the urban local bodies at the destination. A comparative analysis of the status of ST communities, particularly of women and children on some of the indicators such as literacy, workforce participation rate (WPR), health, availability of electricity, drinking water and household assets shows that concerted effort is required to bridge the gap between the ST population and the general population.
The conference has representation of tribals from more than 15 States across the country including that of North Eastern States. A number of stakeholders including Central Government Ministries, State Governments, Tribal Research Institutes, experts and representatives of civil society organizations are participating in the 2-day conference. Representatives of Ministries of Tribal Affairs, Home Affairs, Environment and Forests, Panchayati Raj, Science and Technology, have been participating in it, along with the representatives from States of Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Mizoram, Gujarat, Kerala, Assam, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Orissa, Tripura, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. There has been a conflict of interest between development issues and the need to protect the socio-cultural and historical rights of the tribal population. Exploiting the tribal areas for its rich natural resources without adequately protecting the tribes is not only violative of their constitutional rights but may also be counterproductive in the long run. The need to achieve ecological balance and environmental issues arising out of development plans in tribal belts, thus, requires serious discussion.
The experts and participants deliberated today in the Plenary Session and Working Group sessions on the problems in the areas of Health and Nutrition; Education; Livelihood Opportunities; PESA; Forest Rights; Land Alienation; Exploitation and Atrocities of Tribal women and Children. The Experts included Dr. R.S. Tolia, Dr. P.K. Sivanandan, Shri K. B Saxena, Shri M. Kujur, Smt.Vasavi Kiro, Ms. Shamim, Ms. Razia Ismail, and Dr. Jyotsna Chatterji among others who have been participating in the discussions.
The major points highlighted on the first day related to non recognition of community rights of tribals over land and forest; implementation of labour laws particularly the Inter State Migrant Labour Act to meet the needs of tribals; tribal impact assessment in all development projects; need for studies on the migratory trends from mountainous regions to plains; impact of Climate Change on tribal migration; a strong legislation for protection of domestic workers; and special provision for conflict zones and mountain regions.
The Conference has come out with a set of recommendations on several issues and challenges for the socio-economic empowerment of ST women and children. These would be proposed to the Working Groups of different Ministries for the 12th Five Year Plan for consideration. In order to address the disadvantages faced by ST women and children, various measures have been undertaken by the Government which aim at improving their health and nutritional status, educational and livelihood opportunities, access to productive resources, housing & civic amenities and providing protection against atrocities and forms of violence faced by them.
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