One thing I have to give India-- even though they have a long, long way to go on the road to women's rights, its leaders put their money where their mouths are when it comes to working to change the plight of women in their country. I wrote previously about proposed legislation to battle domestic abuse; there have been efforts to specifically set aside a percentage of government seats for women; and now the government is making secondary level education totally free to families that have only one child who is female (with scholarships for further education and discounts for two-daughter families).
The incentive is aimed at both encouraging people to value girls more highly as well as controlling population growth (apparently many families continue to have children until they have a son). It also addresses the shortage of women in India, which is a direct outgrowth of its anti-female culture.
These are all noble goals, and I am all for measures that help women become better educated. However, there are some big problems with this program. First, even though secondary education is free for both public and private schools (possibly allowing parents of girls to enroll them in better schools far out of their means), post-graduate scholarships are limited to "non-professional" courses, however that is defined, which will almost certainly impact women's ability to match men's earning potential and therefore impact their independence and political clout. Second, the poor families who could most benefit from measures like these are also going to be the least likely to have access to reproductive health services that help them choose how many children to have. And if part of the goal of this program is actually to reduce the abortion of female children, it's going to fail spectacularly if there is a clear financial incentive to abort *additional* female children.
I think this quote sums it up:
"It is definitely a step forward in empowering women", Veena Nair, President of Women's Political Watch told the BBC.
However, she added: "The government must adopt a more holistic approach at empowering women by looking at a whole spectrum rather than this schematic or piecemeal approach".
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