Telegana – Crimes against women rising, despite rising levels of literacy #Vaw

Telangana, despite witnessing rising levels of literacy, has shown an increase in crimes against women. And compounding this is abysmally low presence of women in institutions crucial to address these crimes—judiciary, police department and legislative bodies.

Incidence of crime, of which declining sex ratio is also an indicator, is the highest in Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy, the most urbanised and most literate districts. Also, the crimes against women in families far exceeds other forms of violence, according to ‘Telangana Social Development Report-2018: Gender, Access and Well Being’ brought out by the Council for Social Development (CSD), Southern Chapter.

Edited by Kalpana Kannabiran, Padmini Swaminathan and J. Jeyaranjan, the report provides baseline information drawn from official data on a wide range of themes with special focus on gender to “enable the Telangana government to arrive at evidence-based policies to address several issues raised under each of the themes”.

Former Foreign Secretary Muchkund Dubey, also the CSD president, released the report in the presence of former professors of University of Hyderabad – D. Narasimha Reddy and Shanta Sinha – and social activist Ruth Manorama here on Tuesday.

Speakers pointed out that both this year’s and TSDR-2017 reports highlighted the “deep-rooted bias” against women and children that was revealed through adverse sex ratio at birth, disproportionately large number of widows, declining female work participation, and a large number of women into domestic duties.

The report mentions a pronounced gap between boys and girls in higher education and that a large number of girls, ST girls in particular, walk to school, and that dropouts are high when distance is more. As per the 2014 figures, 10% of boys and 18% of girls have either not enrolled in schools or have dropped out. Also, increasing educational attainment among women is not reflected in working population.

In fact, there is greater proportion of non-literate women working and most literate women in non-working category!

There is also a sharp decline in female labour-force between the age group of 15 and 24 between 2004-05 and 2011-12 when compared to the all-India level indicating a complex array of changing nature of agriculture, reducing their employment prospects.

Mr. Dubey said the State did well when compared to the nationwide figures though the predominant role of private sector in health and education was discernible. Prof. Reddy said the report once again highlighted the need to strengthen primary and secondary education. Since the Telangana government has committed towards implementing sustainable development goals of the U.N., this report could be a ready reckoner, was the common refrain.