Gender Mainstreaming

The exclusion of and discrimination against women in the country continues to be deeply entrenched and widespread. The socio-economic conditions, caste based political scenario and patriarchal ideologies have all contributed towards creating this gender inequality. Even though women contribute to the well being of their families and communities in many different and crucial ways, their contribution is often not recognised and acknowledged. To attain gender equality, PRIA has been using the strategy of gender mainstreaming which is central to all its activities relating to research, training, model building/action research, campaigning, teaching and advocacy. PRIA’s work on promoting gender equality goes back to the days when it initially started working on the themes of participatory research and democratic governance. The organization has constantly stood by its belief of generating an equal platform for both men and women in all aspects and this can be witnessed by the continuous encouragement that it provides to include men and women in all its programmes and projects till date.It’s achievements in this area are built on capacity building initiatives(trainings); awareness generating initiatives (door to door campaign, distributing pamphlets, conducting street plays); building a core group of women citizen leaders; undertaking research on gender issues and trainings; and advocacy with a large number of stakeholders.
	The Vishaka Guidelines in the prevention and redressal of sexual harassment at the workplace has played an important role in PRIA’s constitution as it was among the first civil society organisations in India to form an internal complaints committee (Committee against Sexual Harassment) in accordance with the Supreme Court guidelines. It has also played a vital role in influencing its partners and networks to comply with the Supreme Court guidelines.
Since 1998, PRIA has conducted trainings on gender mainstreaming and prevention of sexual harassment with panchayats and over 100 organisations throughout the country. PRIA launched an e-Campaign Against Sexual Harassment in January 2010 through an interactive website (www.priacash.org), has its own Facebook account page and is on Twitter trying to advocate and build understanding regarding gender sensitive workplaces. PRIA conducted a seminar in March 2010, in collaboration with ILO and UN Solution Exchange on 'Prevention of Sexual Harassment within Workplaces: Issues and Strategies' in New Delhi, bringing together different stakeholders from government, civil society, academia, trade unions, corporates and the informal sector on the proposed sexual harassment Bill. A manual on the theme of ‘mainstreaming gender in institutions’ was prepared by PRIA at ILO’s request to be disseminated by ILO to all government agencies and companies in India and abroad. PRIA also conducts gender sensitizing workshops (in 2011 it conducted a 5-day workshop for the women organisers of various settlements of the Tibetan Government in Exile in India). Success in conducting such workshops has given the organization the space to be recognized as a pioneer in this area and PRIA has conducted capacity building training workshops on sexual harassment for British Council Management Services Pvt. Ltd., Delhi Commission of Women, and Airports Authority of India at their workplaces and has sensitized their institutional complaints committee about sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is not only a reality that working women face but is also something that is reported by students on college campuses and other educational institutions against their teachers, principals, management representatives, seniors and peers. Young girls need to beware of the mobile phone with a camera and all those apps that help you display, capture and morph – all in the name of creativity. In the world of physical stalking, girls now also have to deal with “Facebook stalking”. These were the primary issues discussed at the training workshop conducted by PRIA for the Delhi Commission for Women at Hans Raj College, Delhi University on 15 March 2012. Twenty-seven students, non-teaching staff and teaching staff who together represented 7 College Complaints Committees from the North and South Campuses of Delhi University participated in this training. A direct consequence of the association of PRIA’s campaign against sexual harassment at the workplace and Airports Authority of India’s (AAI) commitment towards the prevention of sexual harassment within their workplace resulted in a partnership that entailed a training programme for 5,000 employees from AAI’s southern region headquartered in Chennai and eastern region headquartered in Kolkata. Its work on the issues prevention of sexual harassment at the workplace also has a research focus.In association with M/s Kochhar& Co., New Delhi PRIA conducted a Rapid Situational Analysis of labour departments and state women’s commissions across 12 states of India.
	PRIA has also been successful in mainstreaming and empowering grassroots women political leaders in both urban and rural areas of Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Haryana. The Women’s Political Empowerment and Leadership programme aimed at creating new networks of women leaders and strengthening existing women’s networks for issue based interactions and imparting skills on building campaign strategy and contesting elections.
Supported by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) PRIA launched a programme on Strengthening Gender Response of Panchayats, where institutions of local governance were made to be more gender responsive in Rajasthan. In addition, a Campaign on Pre Election Voter Gender Awareness for Local Government Elections (PEVGAC) was also initiated before the panchayat elections of January-February 2011 in Rajasthan wherein an attempt was made to address four key issues of gender discrimination, i.e., sex selection, dowry, child marriage and all forms of violence against women in order to increase awareness among the contestants and the community on the key gender discriminatory practices prevalent in the state. This was the first time that these issues were put on the agenda of panchayat elections in the state. PRIA’s role as a technical consultant support to the Programme Support Unit (PSU) saw it working in the formulation and operationalisation of the Gender Strategy Execution Plan which was implemented to the needs of Orissa Tribal Empowerment and Livelihood Programme (OTELP). Backed by PRIA's vast experience in the field and its commitment towards ensuring an equitable gender just society, it has also extended its work towards developing and providing short term courses on Understanding Gender in Society and Women’s Political Empowerment and Leadership.
The rise of decreasing female sex ratio in the state of Haryana over the last few years resulted in Women Power Connect (WPC) and PRIA launching a Campaign Against Sex Selection (Female Foeticide) to enable community action so as to significantly reduce the incidence of female foeticide in the state. Along with implementing the strategy of gender mainstreaming, PRIA has also
worked to provide a platform to exchange experiences and share tools on local level gender budgeting. It undertook a study to examine Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) initiatives in India in order to increase capacities to better monitor and influence public expenditure at the local level. PRIA remains committed to overcoming the challenges, such as lack of awareness about gender issues, low attendance of women in meetings, disparity in access to education, lack of decision making power and inability of women to gather information,in implementing its strategy for gender mainstreaming.