India has slipped a further two places in the WEF Global Gender Gap Index to 129 out of 146 countries in 2024. In South Asia, the situations look grimmer wherein India only managed to better Maldives (132) and Pakistan (146). India has closed 64.1% of its gender gap in 2024, the report noted, leaving policy-makers with a huge window of opportunity to do better. The slight regression, according to the report, is mainly due to small declines in the spheres of education and political empowerment.
India on the indices
This drop has mainly been attributed to declines in Educational Attainment and Political Empowerment. While the report states that development of educational facilities and ease of attainment are well underway, there are still many hurdles in the process. Namely, social and cultural factors, like gender roles, stopping girls from receiving the same education that boys might receive. This also affects the literacy rate between men and women, strengthening stereotypes on gender, and further fuelling the cyclical nature of poverty.
India’s score in Educational Attainment also contributed to a lower parity status compared to the previous assessment cycle. “While the shares of women are high in primary, secondary and tertiary education enrolments, they have only been modestly increasing, and the gap between men and women’s literacy rate is 17.2 percentage points wide,” noted the report.
The Central Government has attempted to enact numerous policies to ratify the situation, like the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) scheme, aimed at building residential schools and increasing literacy rates for girls from predominantly marginalised communities. However, the true success of these schemes come about when combined with other interventions.
What is VOICE 4 Girls doing about it?
There are many NGOs and social service workers who have been working for the cause of gender equality and equity in India. VOICE 4 Girls, is one of them, working tirelessly on methods that help lower the dropout rates among girls during their most critical years.
VOICE through its ‘Her VOICE’ programme has reached out to over 2,80,000 adolescent girls over the last 12 years across India. Acting on two major fronts VOICE:
- Creates gender transformative safe spaces where adolescent girls gain knowledge and skills about sexual and reproductive health. Learn about their rights related to school, home, and community. Explore their careers, aspirations, and future planning. They also receive information about safety from violence and about their rights and responsibilities.
- Provides mentoring by young college students who are the VOICE camp counsellors. VOICE campers then become Sakhi’s (Friend), peer leaders in their schools and communities, where they further replicate VOICE’s work, thereby giving rise to a girl-4-girl approach.
This focus during their most vulnerable lifecycle stage when they are transitioning from the 7th to the 8th standard, the point when they are most likely to disappear from the education system is when VOICE intervenes. Helping these girls plan their future. So they stay in school, take up a career of their choice and become economically independent in the society.
This model has registered clear behaviour-change outcomes in VOICE regions. Ninety-nine percent of the girl participants attend all three camps (Parichay, Disha and Sakhi Peer Leadership) from the ‘Her VOICE’ programme. This is also an indication that they are continuing their schooling. Almost all the girls pursue higher education post attending the programme, while successfully negotiating marriage proposals and challenging domestic violence.
Let’s invest in India’s girls. Their voices, their education, their power to change the world because we at VOICE 4 Girls believe, “when a girl finds her voice, the world around her begins to change.”
Written by: Vedant Chaudhary
Edited by: Subhagata Bhattacharya
VOICE 4 Girls 