- If you could make an intervention at the side event on rural women at the 8th session of the Open Working Group in New York, what would be its key message?
Visibility of rural women’s work: work that is not recognized as there economic value of cash flow added eg work in own agricultural field , fetching water, wood etc where she spends adequate time
- Rural women are often described as critical agents of change in discussions on sustainable development goals. To what extent would the achievement of food and nutrition security for rural women help accelerate sustainable development?
At present: The household responsibilities of women for family are prioritised as her husband, in-laws, children and then herself for health and nutrition. This needs to be changed along with the F & N security then only it can be made sustainable.
- Of the many facts or stats recorded on rural women, which one do you consider to be the most revealing?
Research evidence based on systematic qualitative and quantitative methods are far more reliable . eg the ILO study on Rural women in UP, India measured women’s roles by using time-use data in 4 rural sites of selected families every fortnight for one year and then measured it to understand the actual time contributed by women and men and the cost benefit analysis of work put in and benefits. Similar studies have been done in tribal areas where eg it is reported that a 7 year old girl child could not attend school as was ‘responsible” for babysitting her younger sib as mother away for fetching wood, water for family. Mawar etal 1993 Social Change,India. Mawar, N., Jain, D.C., Verma, A., Kaushik, A., Karmahe, M. and Tiwary, R.S. Understanding the Employment, income in relation to the status of women: A case study of Gonds in M.P. Soc Change 1993, 23(4):87-94
Similarly many intervention projects have shown improvements in women’s decision making when financial literacy was given to rural women in Maharashtra. (Gokhale and Lavlekar 2013 IFUW Conference, Istanbul).
Regards,
Dr Nita Mawar, M.Sc. Ph.D.
Scientist ‘F’/Deputy Director-Senior Grade and HOD,
Social and Behavioural Research Division
National AIDS Research Institute (ICMR)
Department of Health Research, Min. of Health and Family welfare, Government of India
Nita Mawar