Safe public and private spaces, access to jobs and capital, are key to empowering women

From getting women to constitute half the municipal health workforce, to launching counselling teams and suicide helplines in the post-Covid 19 situation, administrators and non-governmental organisations in Surat have ensured over the years, that Gujarat’s diamond city, leads by example.

These were shared at the ieThinc panel discussion on Women Empowerment organised by The Indian Express as part of a series of seminars on India’s urbanisation, in association with Omidyar Network India on November 8. The participants were Surat Mayor Daxesh Mavani, Deputy Municipal Commissioner, (health) Ashish Naik, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Surat Special Branch Hetal Patel, Commandant, State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) Usha Rada and  General Secretary of Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) Jyoti Macwan.

Surat Mayor said the city’s major advantage was the fact that for 30 years it had been ruled by a BJP government. According to Mavani, while Surat still needed more linkage by air, the city was on track to becoming the “world’s fastest city as far as connectivity was concerned” with the upcoming  Bullet Train and the presence of the Hazira port.

“Surat is the only city in the country where the municipal corporation imparts education in seven languages. Earlier people would come to Surat only for jobs, now they come with families”, said Mavani, adding how the city manufactured 95 percent of the world’s diamonds and seven crore metres of fabric daily.

On its initiatives for women, Mavani said that the the Surat Municipal Corporation was preparing “sakhi mandals” so that women are at the centre of all festival celebrations where they could set up stalls and earn.

Surat’s healthcare system has come a long way since the lessons from the plague of 1994. Deputy municipal commissioner Naik who has been with SMC for over 30 years says that from 13-14 healthcare centres around 25 years ago, the city has four urban community health centres, 11 maternity homes, and  four 50-bed hospitals.

“Our health centres have more than 60 to 70 per cent female staff. They are working either in the form of ASHA or auxiliary workers along with multipurpose health workers who are also female. This has helped in two ways -in the policy making and empowerment. With our public health outreach programmes that are directly related to the families, these women staff who are the first point of contact. we come to know immediately what is going on in the community. During COVID-19 pandemic this workforce has helped us in tremendous ways, because they have such a good rapport with the families that families reach out to them in any emergency. Every family in Surat has the phone numbers of either ANM (Auxiliary Nurse Midwife) or ASHA workers,  whom they reach out to directly,” said Dr Naik.

Commandant SRPF,  Usha Rada who was posted in Surat city and district after the Covid 19  lockdown, recalled how there were issues of stress in households because of the menfolk staying at home and suffering from depression. “Thus the women at home became soft targets. We took help of psychologists to sort out their issues”. Rada informed how by launching anti-suicide helplines and the police was able to avert 22 suicides.

“The other issue was that husband and wife went away to work and their children stayed at home. We, with the help of NGOs, created day care centres in Surat district”, said Rada. 

Adding to this, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Special Branch, Surat, Hetal Patel said that along with ensuring safety of children that of senior citizens too was a challenge as many youths go abroad for education and jobs leaving behind parents who become vulnerable.

DCP Hetal Patel says that the good part of Surat is that every office be it a police station, “there is always a woman officer so that women are comfortable in approaching them”.

She says, “Surat’s women participate in Navratri, Ganesh mahotsav and Eid-e-milad till late in the night and they can be of any age, they can be single…they are safe, the public transport system is also efficient. If you say that crime rate is on the rise, it means crime registration is growing. We register and investigate cases swiftly  and put them before the court. The investigation is done in the shortest time and the case is chargesheeted so women get justice”.

She shared how technology was being used by the city police in surveillance. “For instance, during the Navratri garba events this year Artificial Intelligence enabled cameras were installed in the garba pandals and grounds that even covered darker areas which were directly monitored from the control room. Also, all entry and exit points of the city are also covered by cameras along with a GPS system”.

Speaking about financial empowerment of women, Jyoti Macwan, General Secretary of SEWA stressed on capacity building of women that goes together with organising, awareness, capital formation and access to banking services. “Till the time women don’t become owners, users and managers of their own business they will not become self reliant”, said Macwan stressing on how capital formation was at the centre of this empowerment.

“Elaben (Ela Bhatt, founder of SEWA) founded the SEWA bank which has accounts of five lakh women from the informal economy. If there is asset building in the name of women it is the surest way of fighting poverty, is what has been our experience”, said Macwan.

Citing the example of Ahmedabad where, following SEWA’s intervention four sites were identified for women to vend with proper licences, Macwan said, “When the administrative and political wings and organisations like ours come together, this can be achieved”.