Eleventh Five Year Plan

Towards Women’s Agency and Child Rights 187Box 6.3Learn More, Earn More, Discriminate MoreA report by Infochange India (CCDS) uses data from Census 2001 to question the popular belief that literacy rates have adirect bearing on population and that literate people are less prone to gender bias. Although this may be true in some caseslike high population growth rates, the same logic does not hold true for child sex ratio.HAVE MONEY, WILL RAISE ONLY BOYSOverall Child Proportion in Overall Female Female workSex ratio* sex ratio* India’s total literacy literacy participationpopulation** rate** rate** rate**Hindus 931 925 81.4 65.1 53.2 27.5Muslims 936 950 12.4 59.1 50.1 14.1Jains 940 870 0.4 94.1 90.6 9.2Sikhs 893 786 1.9 69.4 63.1 20.2Christians 1009 964 2.3 80.3 76.2 28.7Buddhists 953 942 0.8 72.7 61.7 31.7Others 992 976 0.7 47 33.2 44.2Notes: *as number of females per 1000 males; **as %THE NORTH–SOUTH DIVIDEPunjab 798 Kerala 960Haryana 819 Tamil Nadu 942Delhi 868 Karnataka 946Chandigarh 845 Andhra Pradesh 961Child sex ratio (0–6) as number of girls per 1000 boysSource: The disappearing girl child—Info Change India News and Features Development News India, October 2004.Certain States such as Jharkhand (61.2%), Bihar(60.3%), and Rajasthan (57.1%) have a much higherpercentage of underage marriage among girls. Amongother things, this results in early pregnancies and takesits toll on the health of the woman as well as the child.6.14 Women also disproportionately lack access tohealth services. Inaccessibility of health centres andpoverty prevent them from getting timely medical aid.Absence of toilets and drinking water adversely impactstheir health. NFHS-3 data reveals that only 27.9%households in rural areas and 70% in urban areas haveaccess to piped water. Further, only 25.9% householdsin rural areas have access to toilets.6.15 Inadequacies of clean cooking fuels adverselyimpacts women and children’s work burden, health,and nutrition. Till date, 92% of rural domestic energycomes from unprocessed biofuels (firewood, cropwaste, cattle dung), and 85% of rural cooking fuel isgathered from forests, village commons, and fields.Women and girls spend a great deal of time gatheringfuel, adversely affecting their productivity and education.Use of firewood and inferior fuels such asweeds or crop wastes leads to smoke-related ailmentsincluding respiratory diseases, cancer, and cataractsresulting in blindness.6.16 Then there are sexually transmitted diseases(STDs). NACO estimates that one in three persons livingwith HIV in India is a woman. The National Councilfor Applied Economic Research survey shows thatwomen account for more than 70% of the caregivers,21% of who are themselves HIV positive. Disownedby family and disinherited from property, they areunable to access drugs to prevent mother-to-childtransmission.Nearly 60% of HIV-positive widows areless than 30 years of age and live with their natal families;91% of them receive no financial support fromtheir marital homes. Thus not only are women more