NEW DELHI: The United Nations on Thursday deplored the miniscule 3% representation of women in India’s judicial system and claimed that 35% of fair sex face physical violence in the country.
UN women, a newly created body dedicated to gender equality and empowerment of women, it its report titiled ” Progress of the World’s Women” said India “significantly” lags behind the rest of the world in representation of the fairer sex in judicial system and justice is still out of reach for majority of the community.
Releasing the report, assistant secretary general of UN Women Lakshmi Puri termed it as”disappointing” the meagre representation of women in India’s judicial system saying gender equality was”key” for ensuring justice to the victims.
The report which examined a variety of issues like women’s access to judicial system and sexual harassment in countries accross the world also pointed towards high prevalence of physical and sexual violence against women.”It was found that 35% of respondents in India have reported to be victims of physical violence by their intimate partners, while 10% of respondents were victims of sexual violence by their intimate partners,” it said. The report also said that 39% of men and women think that it is”sometimes or always” justifiable for a man to beat his wife.
Quoting details of a survey carried out by NGO Sakshi to reflect upon the judicial system, it said majority of those surveyed feel that women who are abused by their spouses are to be blamed for their ordeal.
The report, however, complimented the Panchayati Raj system saying over a million women are actively participating in matters of local governance, policy formulation and decision making.”Almost 94% of elected women representatives reported being able to freely raise issues in gram sabha,” the report said, noting that several states have already reserved 50% seats for women in local bodies.
Spanking found to have negative effects on low-income toddlers
Washington, September 16 (ANI): Spanking negatively affects the behaviour of toddlers in low-income families, according to a new study.
Published in the journal Child Development, the longitudinal study looked at how low-income parents discipline their young children.
It showed that spanking 1-year-olds leads to more aggressive behaviours and less sophisticated cognitive development in the next two years.
Verbal punishment, however, was not found to be associated with such effects, especially when it was accompanied by emotional support from mothers.
Besides, 1-year-olds’ fussiness predicted spanking and verbal punishment at ages 1, 2, and 3.
The study explored whether mothers’ behaviours lead to problematic behaviour in children, whether children’s challenging behaviours elicit harsher discipline, or both.
It looked at more than 2,500 exclusively low-income White, African American, and Mexican-American mothers and their young children, interviewing and observing them at home when the children were 1, 2, and 3 years old.
All participants’ family incomes were at or below the federal poverty level.
Using their own interpretations of spanking, mothers reported how often anyone in the home had spanked their children in the past week.
The study also looked at how often mothers verbally punished-scolded, yelled, or made negative comments-their children.
It showed that African American children were spanked and verbally punished significantly more than the other children in the study.
The authors speculated that that might be due to cultural factors, such as belief in the importance of children’s respect for elders and in the value of physical discipline to instil that respect.
Moreover, some African American mothers said that in preparing their children for a harsh, physically dangerous, and racially discriminating world, there was little room for error in their childrearing.
The study also shed light on information about the effects of such types of discipline.
“Our findings clearly indicate that spanking affects children’s development,” said Lisa J. Berlin, research scientist at the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University and the study’s lead author.
Specifically, children who were spanked more often at 1 behaved more aggressively when they were 2, and had lower scores on tests measuring thinking skills when they were 3.
Similar findings were made even after taking into consideration such family characteristics as mothers’ race and ethnicity, age, and education; family income and structure; and the children’s gender.
The study also found that children who were more aggressive at age 2, and had lower cognitive development scores at ages 1 and 2, were not spanked more at ages 2 and 3.
“So the mothers’ behaviours look more influential than the children’s,” said Berlin.
Unlike spanking, however, verbal punishment alone didn’t affect either children’s aggression or their cognitive development.
Interestingly, when verbal punishment was accompanied by emotional support from moms, the children did better on the tests of cognitive ability. (ANI)