State of the world's children 2007 - report released

It is only appropriate that Indiachildwire is launched now - just a few days after the release of the 'State of the world's children - 2007' report. The launch of this report has become a very important event in the diaries of development professionals worldwide dealing with issues of children, but gets precious little play in media - especially Indian media.

The report's premise is that by empowering women helps children reach their fullest potiential. “Gender equality and the well-being of children are inextricably linked,” said UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman in a press release distributed around the launch of the report. “When women are empowered to lead full and productive lives, children and families prosper.”

And the report attempts to qualify 'empowerment' in terms of education, legislation that supports women, quotas for women, financial commitments towards gender equality and involving men and boys in this process. Even a quick look at this list shows that India is woefully lacking in its committment to gender equality - more girls drop out of school than boys; we are still wrangling over the women's bill; i am not sure if we can find what percentage of our GDP is spent on womens's empowerment; and men and boys are the worst perpetrators of violence against women.

Is there hope?

Well, we do have legislation that gives more option to women under the pall of domestic violence; we have legislation that envisages maximum penalty for rapists; we have more women in parliament than ever before and look at the number of women around the country who are part of self help groups (SHGs) - the ubiquitous empowerment model that is becoming (or has become) a replacement for moneylenders (that is an other story by itself). Not to mention the women CEOs of our nation.

But more needs to be done...so that we can continue building a nation that is fit for our children.