We have submitted our recommendations as part of the consultation on Draft National Policy for Women – 2016 (India).

Our key recommendations include:

• increased financial investment in skill development that tends to be extremely short term and technical in nature, bypassing the fact marginal women need holistic capacity building programmes, including social dimensions of empowerment as well as life skills for engaging in sustainable livelihood, especially non-traditional livelihoods
• proactive women centred approach to mobilization for enrolment for skill development programmes considered ‘non-traditional’ for women (pertaining to traditionally men dominated trades) and creation of markets for such trades
• wage gap to be addressed not only at low end jobs but also at high end jobs such as telecommunications, financial services, etc
• to reduce women’s unpaid work time, it is not enough to invest in labour saving technology, creche, parental leave, etc, but also to direct efforts at redistribution of household responsibilities between men and women so that both can share responsibilities of unpaid domestic and care work as well as paid work

Read the full Recommendations for National Policy for Women here