Dying to Live: The Gender Dimension of Child Mortality in India
To be launched on 10 March 2014, a new UN Women report, Hearts & Minds: Women of India Speak, sheds light on this important issue by sharing the stories of Bhuri Bibi and other women.
India has a Gender Inequality Index ranking of 132 out of 148 countries in 2013, according to UNDP’s Human Development Report. Its child sex ratio (the number of females per thousand males from 0 to 6 years of age) has declined rapidly in recent years - meaning fewer girls are being born. According to the 2011 Census, from 927 girls for every 1000 boys in 2001, the ratio has dropped to 919 girls in 2011.
Between 2011-2013, UN Women trained 800 female motivators to encourage other women to participate in special meetings meant only for women or mahila sabhas, where they spoke about domestic violence as well as other social issues such as alcoholism, dowry, sex selection and child marriage. Over the same period, 6 million women participated in 1,172 Gram Sabhas, 5,163 ward sabhas and 3,179 mahila sabhas (women’s meetings at different local levels).
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