Safe public and private spaces, access to jobs and capital are key to women’s empowerment – ​​India News

Over the years, administrators and non-governmental organizations in Surat have ensured that Gujarat’s diamond city leads by example, from ensuring that women make up half of the municipal health workforce to setting up counseling teams and suicide hotlines in post -Covid 19 situation.

These were shared during the ieThinc panel discussion on Women Empowerment organized by The Indian Express as part of a series of seminars on India‘s urbanization, in collaboration with Omidyar Network India on November 8. The participants were Mayor of Surat Daxesh Mavani, Deputy Municipal Commissioner, (health) Ashish Naik, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Surat Special Branch Hetal Patel, Commander of State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) Usha Rada and General Secretary of Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) Jyoti Macwan.

The mayor of Surat said that the city’s greatest advantage was the fact that it was ruled by a government for thirty years. BJP government. According to Mavani, although Surat still needed more air connectivity, the city was on track to become the “fastest city in the world in terms of connectivity” with the upcoming Bullet Train and the presence of Hazira Port.

“Surat is the only city in the country where the municipal corporation offers education in seven languages. Earlier, people used to come to Surat only for work, now they come with families,” Mavani said, adding that the city produced 95 percent of the world’s diamonds and seven crore meters of cloth every day.

About her initiatives for women, Mavani said the Surat Municipal Corporation was preparing ‘sakhi mandals’ so that women are at the center of all festival celebrations where they could set up stalls and earn money.

Surat’s healthcare system has come a long way since the lessons learned from the 1994 plague. Deputy Municipal Commissioner Naik, who has been with SMC for over 30 years, says that from 13 to 14 healthcare centers around 25 years ago, the city has had four urban community health centers. centers, 11 maternity hospitals and four hospitals with 50 beds.

“Our health centers have more than 60 to 70 percent female staff. They work in the form of ASHA or as auxiliary workers, together with multifunctional health workers who are also female. This has helped in two ways: policy making and empowerment. With our public health programs directly linked to families, these female staff are the first point of contact. we immediately know what is going on in the community. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this workforce has helped us in tremendous ways because they have such a strong relationship with families that families reach out to them in an emergency. Every family in Surat has the phone numbers of ANM (Auxiliary Nurse Midwife) or ASHA staff, whom they contact directly,” said Dr Naik.

Commander SRPF, Usha Rada, who was posted in Surat city and district after the war COVID-19 lockdown, recalled that there were stress problems in households as men stayed at home and suffered from depression. “So the women at home became soft targets. We took the help of psychologists to solve their problems.” Rada talked about how by launching anti-suicide hotlines, police were able to prevent 22 suicides.

“The other problem was that the husband and wife went to work and their children stayed at home. With the help of NGOs, we have set up daycare centers in Surat district,” said Rada.

Adding to this, Hetal Patel, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Special Branch, Surat, said that besides ensuring the safety of children, that of seniors was also a challenge as many youth go abroad for education and jobs leaving behind parents who become vulnerable.

DCP Hetal Patel says the good thing about Surat is that every office, be it a police station, “there is always a woman constable so that women feel comfortable approaching them”.

She says, “The women of Surat participate in Navratri, Ganesh mahotsav and Eid-e-milad till late at night and they can be of any age, they can be single… they are safe, the public transport system is also efficient. When you say that crime rates are increasing, it means that crime registration is increasing. We register and investigate cases quickly and submit them to the judge. The investigation will be conducted in the shortest possible time and the case will be taken up so that women get justice.”

She talked about how technology was used by the city police in surveillance. “For example, during the Navratri Garba events this year Artificial intelligence Cameras were installed in the garba pandals and premises covering even dark areas monitored directly from the control room. In addition, all entrances and exits to the city are covered with cameras and a GPS system.”

Jyoti Macwan, Secretary General of SEWA, spoke on women’s financial empowerment and highlighted women’s capacity building that comes with organization, awareness, capital formation and access to banking services. “Until the time women do not become owners, users and managers of their own businesses, they will not become self-reliant,” Macwan said, emphasizing that capital formation was central to this empowerment.

“Elaben (Ela Bhatt, founder of SEWA) founded SEWA bank, which has accounts of five lakh women from the informal sector. economy. In our experience, building assets in the name of women is the surest way to combat poverty,” said Macwan.

Macwan cites the example of Ahmedabad, where, after SEWA’s intervention, four locations were identified where women with the appropriate licenses could sell outlets. “If the administrative and political wings and organizations like ours come together, this can be achieved.”