GIRLS AND GIRLHOODS AT THRESHOLD OF YOUTH AND

GENDER

Review of Chapter 15 to Chapter 21 by Ms. Guruvaishnavi

My friends Ms.Sakshi Goyal and Ms.Rachna R Amarnani have given the review of
first two parts of the book and I am doing the concluding part. Firstly I am
dealing with case studies given by Ms.Shalini Mathur and Dr. Rohini Kashikar
Sudhakar. Next is NGO Mukta and Dr.Ruby Ojha’s topic on empowerment of
adolescent girls through NGO intervention. Finally, Ms Parul Sheth’s report on
Shaishav Balsena, Girl Child and Law by Adv. Vijay Hiremath and Symposium
organized by VACHA.

Ms Shalini Mathur and Dr Rohini Kashikar Sudhakar have provided us with a

case studies relating to ‘Adolescent girls’ in chapter number 15 and 17
respectively.

Ms Shalini Mathur’s case studies are of the adolescent girls in protective homes
run by the Government in North India in the early 90’s. She provides detailed
information about the working of such protective homes and brings to our notice
that such homes are more like jails by bringing out the fact that there is no
connection of the outside world with these girls and vice-versa. However, the
girls are provided with basic amenities of food, health, education and security.

Ms Mathur has mentioned that these girls are detained under three provisions
i.e., ‘moral danger’, caught with boys and controversy between father and
husband. The ways to get out of these homes are again a compromise because
they would either have to be taken back by their family or get married or by
proving to the magistrate that they are independent enough to survive.

To enhance the study, the author narrates two case studies, one of Naseema,
who was raped by her step-father’s friend and was impregnated by him. Not
accepted by her family, she was sent to a protective home and was later on
rescued by her sister. The second one was the case of a Dalit girl Savitri, who
eloped with a Dalit man unaware of his first marriage. She was not accepted
back by her family and hence was sent to a protective home where she married
another Dalit man whose first wife had absconded.

The analysis on these case studies is done to understand who is actually

responsible for such circumstances faced by the girls. The author rightly says
that these girls, from their childhood have been facing negligence and have
been deprived of love, care and affection from home and society. Therefore,
they go beyond their doorstep in search of that little bit of love and affection. I
thank Ms.Shalini Mathur for giving such an informative case study of girls
staying in protective homes. These case studies reflect the ground realities
about the protective homes.

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Dr Rohini’s case studies are related to the girls residing in two slums in Mumbai.
Out of the ten case studies, I really appreciate two case studies which are of
Sarita and Kapi. Sarita left her drunkard husband and chose to be a single
parent. Whereas, Kapi has rendered commendable services which was beneficial
for the slum she resides in, even though she was faced by threat at every step
she took. Eventually, she became a local political leader.

The plight of the educated girls in case studies of Gauri and Chanda was really
heart breaking because it shows that there is no recognition of young employed
girls in slum areas. They usually face hideous comments from the community
while going for work in their formal attire whereas they should have been
appreciated about their decent level of education and employment.

Dr Rohini has provided us with wonderful discussions and conclusion relating to

boys and girls residing in slum areas which is required to improve their situation.
She has given an overview under the heads
 Parents beating, fights and intervention of police
 Less education and dropping out of school
 Patriarchy
 Economic freedom of girls
 Misuse of freedom by girls-due to which they have suffer in future
 Lack of proper parenting and mentoring

There is also consensus between Dr Rohini and Ms Mathur when it comes to lack
of love and affection and negligence of the girl child. For me, Dr Rohini’s case
studies were so interesting to read because for an urban middle class girl like
me, will not come to have a nuanced understanding of predicament of the girls
in slum areas.

To solve the problems of adolescent girls as mentioned above there is need of

an NGO intervention. This can be seen in chapter number 16 that talks about
Mukta foundation, which is working towards care and empowerment of
vulnerable, destitute and violence affected girls. They are providing shelter to
adolescent girls, give them support and strengthen their capabilities and work
for their improvement in education, health, economical and social rights. To
achieve these objectives they have done several activities.

Mukta has worked tremendously for these girls. In the past 4 years they have
empowered about 50 girls. All the Mukta girls belong to lower socio economic
strata, neglected and affected by violence from family and community. The
main challenges faced by Mukta were, the issue of rehabilitating these girls,
sensitization of police, implementation of girls law, intervention of media and
awareness programmes for girls. I appreciate the work done by Mukta
foundation for immensely contributing to the development of the society
through its activities

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Dr.Ruby Ojha has also talked about NGO intervention for empowerment of
adolescent girl in chapter no 19. She has given a brief introduction of adolescent
girls in India and has rightly said that gender discrimination, illiteracy, lack of
employment opportunities deprive women in their mainstream development. A
question may arise why there is a need for NGO intervention? To which the
author says adolescence is a time of increased vulnerability and potential risk
and therefore there is a need for preventive intervention.

Dr.Ojha also mentions about problems like early marriage, verbal and sexual
abuse, no power in decision making in addition to the other problems as
mentioned earlier which hinder their development. The author has discussed
about rights relating to adolescent girls which is important for them to know, like
basic need of education, health, access to life-skill and livelihood, good
environment and participation of girls in changing the mind set of family and
society. She has talked about framework for action, which is “meeting the
development and participation rights of adolescent girls” that puts adolescent
girl in forefront of development of three UN organization i.e., UNICEF, UNFPA,
WHO. It can also be seen that population council, the commonwealth youth
progamme, international centre for research on women and family care
international is going to conduct a project across 12 countries that will reach out
to adolescent girls. It is good to see that even international organizations are
taking part in upliftment of adolescent girls. There is a part in this chapter that
mentions about a programme called Better Life Object Program (BLP) conducted
by Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEPDA) since 1989.

Lastly Dr Ojha has mentioned some conclusion and recommendations. Out of

the several recommendation I liked the most was participation of society,
educationalist and community leader for upliftment of adolescent girl,
government coordination with NGO, creation of new policies and programme for
these girls

Chapter no 18 was very interesting because it was about children’s activism and
it was surprising to know how children helped in doing research work about the
situation of children in village. Ms Parul Sheth has beautifully mentioned about
the working of Shaishav Balsena in Gujarat. The main highlight about Shaishav
Balsena is that they wanted to understand a situation from children’s point of
view and hence took them for research work. They conducted their research
work in 42 villages and these villages were divided between the team. Each
team would have 2 Balsena 1 male and 1 female along with 4 MSW students.
They had to collect data about education, health, protection, family situation,
girl’s situation, daily life cycle of children, and information about the village.
Each team would share their data with other teams. They compile all the data’s
given by the children and make a district level report. Feedback was taken from
the children who were working as Balsena and the MSW student. They
concluded mentioning that there is a need of similar state level report, they
have gained confidence and have explored various methodologies.

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Advocate Vijay Hiremath has enlightened us with girl child law in chapter no 20.
He has tried to critically analyze the laws relating to girl child. I was glad to read
that after Article 14 and Article 15 which talks about right to equality, there was
formulation of new Article 15(3) in which it allows the government to make
special legislation and scheme for the upliftment of women in the country.

The author first talks about The Child Marriage act, 2006 that tells about age
limit of a boy and a girl for marriage i.e., 21yrs for boys and 18 yrs for girls. I
agree with the author that even though this act talks about prohibition of child
marriage, the girls are at disadvantage because their age limit is less than boys.
It was good to read The new Juvenile Justice Act, 2000 treats the girl and boy
child at equal level by leveling their age limit to 18 yrs. In The Immoral
Trafficking Prevention Act age limit is of 16yrs, the author rightly says that this
act contradicts The Juvenile Act and girl child are at disadvantage because mass
trafficking is of women only. The most important act which I felt was The Child
Labour Act, 1986 where the age limit is 14yrs. This act doesn’t distinguish
between girl and boy age limit because of which girl child suffer since they are
violated and given more tedious job than boys. It was refreshing to read Goa
Children’s Act because it separately mentions girl child and ask the state to
ensure that there should is no difference between girl and boy child. He gives a
summary of Indian Penal Code relating to crime against women and its
punishment. He has also mentioned about Government Scheme relating to girl
child.

The last Chapter no. 21 takes us through the National Symposium on Girls and
Girlhood which was conducted on November 6-8, 2008 at SNDT Women’s
University, Mumbai organized by VACHA and P.G department of Economics. This
Chapter gives us a clear picture that how this Symposium was conducted. There
were many paper presentations, testimonies, beautiful poem recital by various
people coming from different Universities and State. While Symposium was
going on in the committee room parallel workshops were conducted for
municipal school girls across Mumbai. Had I attended this Symposium it would
have been an enriching and enlightening experience. Because the whole
Symposium was conducted in a very creative and educative manner for
students like us. I hope VACHA will conduct a similar kind of conference so that
we can be part of their good work.

I would conclude my review by expressing my sincere thanks to Vibhuti madam

for choosing me to give the review of such thought provoking book. It was a
great honor and opportunity for me of dong such a big task for VACHA and
Nehru centre.