24th January: National Girl Child Day

National girl child day is celebrated every year on 24th of January as a national observance day for the girl child. This celebration was started to offer more supports and new opportunities to the girls in the country. It is celebrated to increase the awareness among people about all the inequalities faced by the girl child in the society. Inequality about girl child is a vast problem which includes many areas like inequality in education, nutrition, legal rights, medical care, protection, honour, child marriage and so many.

National girl child day has been started as a national girls development mission by the Government of India. This mission raises the awareness among people all over the country about the importance of girl’s promotion. It enhances the meaningful contribution of the girls in decision making processes through the active support of the parents and other community members.

National Girl Child Day 2016

National girl child day 2016 would be celebrated on 24th of January, at Sunday.

Why National Girl Child Day is Celebrated

It is celebrated to promote the girls position in the society to make their living better among society people. It is very necessary to remove different types of social discrimination and exploitation that girls generally face in their life. To increase the awareness about the necessity of the girls right in the society, various political and community leaders speech to the public about the girls right for the equal education and fundamental freedoms.

It is very necessary for the girls to get full potential, safe and enabling environment. They should be aware of all their legal rights and the facts of life. They should be aware that they have the good education, nutrition and health care rights. They should be well aware about legislations including Domestic Violence Act 2009, Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006 and Dowry Prohibition Act 2006 in order to get their proper rights and face all the challenges in life.

In our country, female literacy rate is still 53.87% and one third of the youngster girls are malnourished. Reproductive age group women are anemic and suffering from various other diseases just because of the gender discrimination in the society and limited access to the health services. Various steps have been taken at national and state level by the Ministry of Women and Child Development to improve the girl child status through a range of schemes.

The Women and Child Development Ministry had implemented a scheme called “Dhanalaksmi” to make cash transfer to the girl child family to fulfil the basic needs such as immunization, birth registration, school enrollment and maintenance up to the Class VIII. The Right to Education Act has made available the free and necessary education to the girl child.

How National Girl Child Day is Celebrated

Varieties of events are organized all across the country to celebrate the girl child day to promote girls position in the society. Government of India organizes a big campaign to increase people consciousness towards the girl children in the Indian society.

National Girl Child Day celebration was started by the Women and Child Development Ministry since 2008 to celebrate as the national observance. Through this campaign, the Indian Government has highlighted the inequalities towards the girl in the Indian society. At this day, various advertisements are run by the government on the TV channels, local newspapers and radio stations and through the message of “Save the Girl Child”. NGO organizations and non government organizations also come together and take part in the celebration to fight against the social stigma about girl child.

National Girl Child Day: Objectives

Armed with more than half a dozen objectives, the government, along with other stakeholders, is trying to ensure the girl child survives and succeeds with dignity and respect in a male-dominated society.

To increase the awareness and offer new opportunities to the girl child.
To remove all the inequalities faced by the girl children.
To ensure that every girl child is getting proper respect, human rights and value in the Indian society.
To work against diminishing the child sex ratio and fight the social stigma against the girl child.
To initiate couple towards the girl child by increasing awareness about the importance and role of the girl child.
To address the girl children issues associated to their health, education, nutrition etc.
To propagate the gender equality

What will National Girl Child Day celebrations achieve? It attempts to attack the prevailing mindset and ensure that even before a girl is born she is not viewed as a burden and that she does not becomes a victim of violence or female foeticide.

Legislative Measures

For meeting these challenges, the government is stressing on the importance of three 'A's, i.e. Advocacy, Awareness and Affirmative action. Some of the important legislative measures taken so far include:-

Banning Sex determination during pregnancy and Policies & programmes for rewarding the girl child
Restricting Child marriages
Improving Antenatal care for all the pregnant women
Introduction of “Save the Girl Child” scheme
Free and compulsory primary school education for both boys and girls till 14 years of age.
Reservation of 1/3 seats in the local government for women.
School children are well availed with the uniforms, noon meal and educational materials and schemes of higher learning for SC and ST girls.
Balwadi-cum-creeches.
The Open Learning System has been established for easiness to the girls of backward areas.
Self-Help Groups initiated in various states is helping girls in rural areas access better livelihood opportunities

Other Affirmative Actions

Another equally important scheme is the ‘Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls (RGSEAG)–‘Sabla’, a Centrally-sponsored scheme introduced in the year 2010-11 on a pilot basis. Sabla aims at all-round development of adolescent girls of 11-18 years (with a focus on out of school girls) and is being implemented in 205 districts from all the States/UTs.

Kishori Shakti Yojana (KSY) implemented since 2006-07 as a component under the centrally sponsored Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme seeks to empower adolescent girls in terms of nutritional, health and family care, learning life skills and going back to school. Currently KSY is being implemented in 6118 blocks in the country.

Financial Empowerment

To commemorate National Girl Child Day in 2014, India Post launched a special drive for opening of new Saving Bank (SB) accounts in the name of each girl child. The drive starts from January 24 and concluded on 28.

The objective of the drive is to secure the future of girl child by motivating them to open a small savings bank account.

This facility is available in all 4480 Post offices of North Karnataka Region covering all villages. Under this scheme, each account fetches 4 percent interest per annum and depositor can make any number of transactions. The executives will visit all schools to help each school going girl child to have one SB account in her name.

Protecting Against Sexual abuse

The Integrated Child Protection Scheme being implemented since 2009-10 and Childline services is also addressing the issue of safety and security of girl child in India.

Top policy makers realised how child abuse is shrouded in secrecy and there is a conspiracy of silence around the entire subject. In 2005 the Ministry of Women and Child Development undertook a study to examine the extent and magnitude of child abuse in India. As a result a special law - the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 - was passed by Parliament in May, 2012 to address this issue.

Child Budgeting

Child Budgeting introduced in the Union Budget for 2008-09 by the UPA government aims at providing for Schemes for the Welfare of Children. Initially it covered the “Demands for Grants” with child-specific schemes from Ministries of Women and Child Development, Human Resource Development, Health and Family Welfare, Labour and Employment, Social Justice & Empowerment, Tribal Affairs, Minority Affairs, Youth Affairs and Sports. Currently the 'Child Budgeting' statement covers 18 “Demands for Grants” from Union Ministries/Departments of Atomic Energy, Industrial Policy, Posts, Telecommunication, and Information and Broadcasting among others), marking a significant increase from an initial Budget. This along with the Gender Budgeting is likely to improve opportunities for girl child to survive and succeed in India.

National Child Policy Resolution Adopted

To affirm its commitment to the rights based approach in addressing the continuing and emerging challenges in the situation of children, the Government of India had adopts this Resolution on the National Policy for Children, 2013. The document calls for a comprehensive review of this Policy once in five years in consultation with all stakeholders, including children. The Ministry of Women and Child Development will lead the review process.

Conclusion

Protecting a girl child in India should not be limited to observing National Girl Child Day every year. Instead armed with strong legislative measures, the governments and other stakeholders - the community, civil society, business houses, neighbourhood and parents – must play a strong role to secure a safe life for the girl child in order to build a better society, better future and a better India.