Women's Groups Endorse Parallel Parliament

Women's group from across the country today endorsed the concept of a parallel women's parliament, an informal body of 545 women, where they would also take up various issues, particularly those relating to gender.

"Women have endorsed the concept and will work towards finalizing it," Pam Rajput convener of the India Women's Watch told a press conference here today.

The women's parliament would involve "electing or nominating one woman from each parliamentary constituency who will raise issues related to the area not otherwise taken up in the constitutionally - elected House. The members will meet in New Delhi to deliberate upon national issues.

Sustenance: While women themselves will contribute to sustain the alternative parliament, the elected Members of Parliament will also be asked to make contributions from the MP Local Area Development Fund.

The idea came up at the two day deliberation of the non-governmental organization consultation on "Beijing +10," a meeting to assess the gains made during the decade after the Beijing Platform for Action was adopted by the United Nations at the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995. Carried out under the banner of India Women's Watch, the outcome of the consultations will be presented at the review meeting of the Beijing Platform for Action in New York between February 28 and March 11.

Going by the report card prepared by the NGOs, India has gone down on 11 counts and made "superficial" progress only in education.

"This, too, is not a surety because though the literacy figures show an increase opportunities and access to quality education is still lacking," Ms. Rajput said.

Violence, trafficking and missing girls are some of the issues that will be highlighted at the New York meeting.

They called upon the Government to implement the 33 per cent reservation for women in Assemblies and Parliament as promised at the Beijing meeting in 1995.

Reservations in panchayats and civic bodies had come before the meeting in 1995 but the Women's Reservation Bill has made no progress since then. They said the coming budget must include six per cent of GDP on education and there should be allocation for implementation of Plan of Action that emerged from Beijing Platform of Action, 1995 and outcome document assessment report 2000 and Millennium Development Goals.

The missing girls' issue should the focus of all government policies. There was an urgent need to develop an action plant of address the challenges of reducing mortality, the participants said while wanting the Government to review the compulsory tow-child norm as it victimized women further.