WeToo: Women in farming seek gender parity -Basant Kumar Mohanty

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published Published on Oct 11, 2018   modified Modified on Oct 11, 2018
-The Telegraph

March sought equality for farm workers

New Delhi:
A band of bold women is outing alleged predators in newsrooms in the country while another group of women is hitting the streets to bar their gender from the Sabarimala temple in Kerala.

In the middle of the twin turmoil and away from the limelight, as many as 25,000 people from the election-bound heartland had last week set out on a long march seeking an end to a gender disparity that is rarely acknowledged.

“Farmer” is a gender-neutral noun on paper but a masculine sieve in practice. Women agriculture workers who bear the brunt of the backbreaking work in farms are rarely considered “farmer” in the country when it comes to loans although banks insist they practise no such discrimination. Activists say the lack of documents with women workers makes it easy for banks to deny them loans.

When the Ekta Parishad, an organisation fighting for the right to homestead land for all, launched the march last Tuesday from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh to Delhi, one of its demands was to ensure gender parity among farm workers. The Parishad has sought a Women Farmers’ Entitlement Act to confer the “farmer” status on women workers.

The other demands include the introduction of a National Right to Homestead Act that guarantees at least 10 cents of land for each family, a National Land Reforms Policy, a land tribunal and fast-track courts to resolve land rights cases and a monitoring structure to implement progressive land laws.

The 25,000 sharecroppers and landless labourers were hoping that Union rural development minister Narendra Singh Tomar would address them in Gwalior last Tuesday.

The department of land resources under the rural development ministry deals with land reforms. Minister of state for women and child development Virendra Kumar did attend the meeting on behalf of Tomar.

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The Telegraph, 11 October, 2018, https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/wetoo-women-in-farming-seek-gender-parity/cid/1671470


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