Prioritizing girls education and prosperity with Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Yojana
- Ishan Arora
- May 21, 2020
- 2 min read
A tri-ministerial effort of Women and Child Development, Health & Family Welfare and Human Resource Development, Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Yojana was launched on 22nd January 2015 in Panipat, Haryana. Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Yojana is the crown jewel of the Central Government's schemes, which aims at addressing the declining child sex ratio in the country and also combat other issues related to women by creating awareness and building advocacy campaigns to change the prevailing outlook towards the female gender.
Generations have witnessed discrimination between the male and female gender, though we have come a long way from strong, outspoken, and largely practiced prejudices; we still have a long way to go. National Crime Records Bureau, in its December 2019 report, states that more than 32,500 cases of rape were registered with the police in 2017, which amount to approximately 90 rape cases a day. Countless forms of abuse have been inflicted on the women of our country – child marriage, female infanticide, female foeticide, domestic violence, acid attacks, sexual harassment, trafficking and forced prostitution, cyber-bullying, etc. for which patriarchy and other socially regressive systems in our country are to blame.
In 2007, the Ministry of Women and Child Development in collaboration with UNICEF along with Save the Children, and Prayas found out that two out of three Indian children face physical abuse, and more than half face sexual violence in some form or the other. This heartbreaking state of affairs needs to be collectively tacked by the government, legal bodies, society, and all of us!
Altering the policies, laws, and acts and sensitizing gender laws will not effectively bring about the change we wish to see in our society, which is why Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Yojana was launched to revolutionize the way women and girls are treated. Notably, the government has assigned 100 crore rupees on the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Yojana and another 50 crore rupees towards women's safety in public transports in conjunction with 150 crore rupees towards women's safety in large cities.
The Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Yojana will gain more momentum and reach its goal only when all of us participate and show our support. How, you ask? You could donate to an NGO like Save the Children that works with many leading corporate names in the country that, as part of their CSR activities, help empower the girl child through various schooling programmes and other services. In 2019, Save the Children credited itself to have benefitted 2.17 lakh children through projects on education.
Come, stand in solidarity with us!
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