NEW DELHI: As many as 44 Acts of Parliament may need legislative amendments in order to make them conform to the general principle of gender equality and protection of women’s rights.
The ministry of women and child development (WCD) has identified these Acts based on a directive from United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi to the government.
According to highly placed sources, the Congress president had asked the government to look into all laws that either have clauses that work against women’s interests or have no specific clause for them and amend them suitably. The WCD ministry, which brought new legislation in 2005 to protect women from domestic violence, has identified 44 central Acts that impinge on the rights of women, directly or indirectly.
The exercise is being conducted by the ministry along with the National Commission for Women (NCW), which has the mandate to review all existing provisions of the constitution of India and other laws affecting women and to recommend changes. NCW has been reviewing all legislations specifically enacted to protect the rights of women or those having provisions affecting them. In fact, the Lotika Sarkar committee had in 2001 made over 1,000 recommendations for changes to old laws.
“Despite giving an impression that the UPA government is gender-friendly, a lot of bills are pending with various ministries and things haven’t moved very fast barring the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act and a few amendments,” says Ranjana Kumari, director, Centre for Social Research, New Delhi. “A lot of loopholes have been identified in the old laws and many of these need urgent review,” she adds.
The government has now sought comments and views from the general public on these laws to check whether they have any gender discriminatory or deficient provisions.
“One of the goals set out in the National Common Minimum Programme of the UPA government is achieving complete legal equality for women in all spheres, especially by removing gender-discriminatory legislation or by enacting new legislation that gives women, for instance, equal rights of ownership of assets like houses and land,” says the WCD ministry.
“Many of these Acts are very old and need to be updated keeping in mind the recent social changes and to strengthen the position of women in society. In many cases there are differences in wages and working hours (for men and women). There is also a need for compulsory registration of marriages,” says a ministry official.
Out of the 44 Acts identified as having a direct bearing on women, eight relate to the WCD ministry itself. Others relate to various legislative departments, including the ministry of health and family welfare.
Incidentally, the recently enacted Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, is itself up for review. The ministry has already asked state governments to give their responses on the Act and point out the lacunae in its provisions.
