Women and Human Rights

This book describes the lack of attention to the human rights of women and indicates a range of issues where equal rights for women are still denied.  The human rights of women as workers, prisoners should be (but more often are not), equal to those of male workers, prisoners.  The gender gap between the recognition and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedom is the main theme of this book.  One specific purpose of this book is to provide women with information about those areas of law which are most likely to affect their lives.  The books is divided into 14 chapters and deals with sexual assault, sexual harassment, domestic violence, custodial violence, dowry deaths, prisoners’ human rights, women in prostitution, children in prostitution, women’s right to property, etc.  This book singles out two illustrative examples that demonstrates, that equal rights for women remain to be conquered: the rights or married women and women’s right of property originate in their treatment as dependents whose legal, economic and social status is derived from that of the need of the family.  Women’s equality is thus doubly jeopardized by their sex and their marital and / or family status.  In the economic sphere, women’s earnings are deemed supplementary to those of the "bread winner".  More important, much work performed by women is not recognized. In short, although women play a vital role in every sphere of social life, yet their participation is not valued.  Further, women are often used instrumentally, existing in conditions manipulation and at times even degradation.  This given rise to innumerable and conflicts and contradictions, often including violence.  Violence against women has often been justified on cultural and religious grounds, and is seldom considered a criminal activity.  The inclusion of violence against women in the human rights agenda was initially hampered by views, that the ‘private’ sphere should be exempted from human rights norms.  In other words, what husband and father, do to women, was deemed not to constitute a human rights issues.  With reference to dowry deaths, the law has been amended to create special categories of offence to deal with dowry harassment, but these provisions have not been effective to protect the women from violence and physical assault.  The worldwide movements successfully argue, that violence against women was a human right issue, is a good example of making human rights norms and procedure work of women. It is true that global recognition of Universal Human Rights owes its existence to the United Nation.  But there is a gap between the international standards and policies and the actual problems women face.  While the achievements in international standards should not be underestimated, their real impact can be measured only through an examination of their application in their daily lives.  A few case studies have been selected to illustrate how human rights apply to women in India. This book will, provide a better understanding of the human rights concepts and help women to realize and protect their rights of which they are unaware of.