Mathur Ritika Passi

Broadening the Mandate
While the MDGs helped prioritise gender
equality in the global development
agenda, the historic 1979 Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women and the 1995 Beijing
Declaration and Platform for Action have
been crucial in establishing the framework
for achieving inclusive women’s empowerment
and gender equality. For SDG 5 to
have maximum impact, it is essential that
the targets are streamlined along existing
multilateral human rights mechanisms.
To an extent, MDG 3 was not successful
in doing so. This is evident by the noninclusion
of sexual health, reproductive
health and reproductive rights of women in
the agenda—something well established in
prior processes. SDG 5 changes this status
quo. Target 5.6 explicitly states that nations
must ensure “universal access to sexual
and reproductive health and reproductive
rights as agreed in accordance with the
Programme of Action of the ICPD and the
Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome
documents of their review conferences.” This
is significant for India, where only a limited
number of contraception techniques are
made available to women. According to the
Population Foundation of India, 85% 16 of
India’s family planning budget goes towards
promoting and performing female sterilisations.
This strategy, however, has come under
heavy scrutiny since 15 women died and
many more were hospitalised after being
operated on under unhygienic conditions at
an incentive-based sterilisation camp. 17
Since population control is still one of
India’s national priorities, the inclusion of
this target in SDG 5 could act as the push
required to restructure family planning
strategies. There is an urgent need to ensure
easier availability of safe contraception and
include sexual health education of both men
and women within family planning policies.
Moreover, target 5.6 is also directly connected
with SDG health targets 3.1, dedicated to
reducing maternal mortality, and 3.7, dedicated
to ensuring universal access to sexual
and reproductive healthcare services.
In addition, the most significant convergence
in the broadened SDG agenda and national
priorities can be seen though target 5.2:
“Eliminate all forms of violence against
all women and girls in public and private
spheres, including trafficking and sexual and
other types of exploitation.” In a huge step
forward from the MDGs, this SDG target
acknowledges sexual and gender-based
violence as a global epidemic.
Recently, anger over yet another incident of
sexual violence and murder on 16 December
2012 led to an unprecedented mass
movement for gender justice in India. Safety
and security of women is now not only a
national priority, but also a major election
issue. 18 For the first time, gender inequality
and women’s safe mobility were topics of
debate during national and state elections
of 2014, marking a significant shift in how
gender concerns are viewed by the political
class as well as by voters.
To its credit, over the last 15 years, a
comprehensive set of laws have been
promulgated in India. These include the
Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace
(Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act
of 2013 19 and the Criminal Law (Amendment)
Act, 2013. The latter broadened the
definition of rape and strengthened laws
related to sexual offences to include crimes
like acid attacks, sexual harassment, stalking
and voyeurism into the Indian Penal
Code. 20
Furthermore, SDG target 5.3—“eliminate
all harmful practices, such as child, early
and forced marriage and female genital
mutilations”—is especially relevant to
India. While the phrasing of the target gives
the impression of it being restricted to the
harmful practices it explicitly names, a push
should be made for it to also cover pre-natal
sex-selection practices prevalent in India.
According to national census, the Child Sex
Ratio 21 has shown a persistent decline, from
945 in 1991 to 927 in 2001 and further to
918 in 2011. Arguably, the most important
women’s empowerment initiative by the
Indian government recently has been the
Beti Bachao Beti Padhao 22 (save the daughter)
scheme. By 2030, India should be in a
position to judge the efficacy of its efforts in
controlling the declining sex ratio.
Internalising the Gender Goal
It can be concluded that there is noticeable
convergence between SDG 5 and India’s
44