Dialogue on Beti Bachao Beti Padhao

Pre-Natal sex selection is one of the leading causes in India for a serious decline in the number of girls under the age of seven.  To address the issue, in January 2015, the Government of India launched ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao,’ (BBBP) a watershed program to address the problem of sex-selective abortion on a large scale. The program was initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to address the issue of sex selective abortion in the 100 districts in India with the worst Childe Sex Ratio.

CSR is contributing to this effort as a program partner in five districts of Haryana, which as are the lowest performing districts in the country. The CSR team met the present Minister for Women & Child Development (MWCD), Govt of India, Mrs. Maneka Sanjay Gandhi, who recommended CSR to be nodal NGO in implementing the project in 5 districts of Haryana namely Ambala, Kurukshetra, Gurgaon, Jhajjar and Mahendragarh. CSR has undertaken critical community interventions, along with working parallel with the District Appropriate Authorities (DAA). CSR’s major activities involved establishing Community Watch Groups (CWG) and Committee Against Sex Selection (CASS), Expert Group meetings with the DAAs.

Under the project, the team established 25 Community Watch Groups, celebrated 5 Kanya Janm Mahotsavs, organised 5 street plays and photography competitions among the youth, conducted 5 ASHA/Anganwadi workers training, 5 expert groups meeting, and 2 Interface workshops with District Appropriate Authorities and community members.

Centre for Social Research (CSR) was nominated as a nodal agency to implement ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ in 5 districts of Haryana in 2015. CSR has also worked on the issue of sex selective abortion since 2008 when we developed our Meri Shakti Meri Beti (MSMB) model as a 2-phased action-based research and community engagement model designed to tackle the root social causes of sex-selective abortion and improve implementation of the PC-PDNT Act in Narela, Najafgarh and Punjabi Bagh. Then, from 2009-2011 MSMB was implemented in the two skewed sex ratio districts of Haryana, Ambala & Kurukshetra, both at the urban level and also 20 villages. In 2012, CSR partnered with the German Embassy to initiate the Meri Shakti Meri Beti (MSMB) model in the Southwest District of Delhi, which records the worst child sex ratio in the city.   Under this partnership, CSR completed a situational analysis of the problem in the district, analyzed the availability of medical facilities involved in sex-selection, established issue-based community groups, and conducted a range of awareness raising activities across the targeted communities. In 2013, this partnership was taken to the next level while the project was implemented in all the 11 districts of Delhi. In 2014, CSR worked on this issue of pre-natal sex selection in Gurgaon & Manesar.

Objective

At the one-year anniversary of the program’s initiation, each state is developing a review report on ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ in the first week of January 2016.  The purpose of the dialogue is to record the best practices of the national-level campaign on the basis of feedback from five targeted district of the state.

CSR proposes to support this process by conducting a dialogue on Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao. This research will be based in the five districts in Haryana in which CSR is working on this issue will be focused on constructive support of the government’s efforts under this new program. The participants in the conference will include key stakeholders of Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Government Officials, including District and State Appropriate Authority, Network Civil Society Organisations contributing to program, government workers (Anganwadi, ASHA, etc), community groups.

Collaboratively, the developments of recommendations to address challenges, deepen program impact, and support government activities in relation to the implementation of Beti Bachao Beti Padhao in Haryana will be shared and disseminated amongst the key stakeholders and other interest parties.  

This dialogue addresses a key government program of B3P to combat sex-selective abortion and for holistic development of girl children through education, a complex socio-economic issue.  The dialogue seeks to strengthen government efforts and support a robust, multi-faceted approach to this problem.

Target Area:  5 CSR program districts in Haryana i.e. Ambala, Kurukshetra, Gurgaon, Jhajjar & Mahendragarh

Key Stakeholder Workshop: District Administration (PO, ICDS), Medical wing, Grassroot workers (Anganwadi and ASHA workers), District Task Force, and NGO’s.

Activities:

1. Two-day Dialogue Workshop for key government, civil society, and private stakeholders in Haryana to present results of survey and develop recommendations

Key issues/questions may involve:

• What are current best strategies and achievements of first year?
• Where can coordination with government are strengthened?
• What is the level of community engagement?
• How can outreach be increased to involve broader range of stakeholders?

Group discussion:

A group discussion will be held at the end of the first day of the event among stakeholders attending the programme to record and recommend strategies based on the following pints:

• Best Practices of implementation of B3P in five districts
• Challenges faced in implementation of the programme in each districts with possible solutions
• Deepening Impact of the programme in districts
• Way forward – suggesting ideas and visions for effective implementation of B3P in each of the district

CSR will release its report after the dialogue with the key stakeholders in the last week of March 2016. We look forward to an active engagement of all the key stakeholders!

Information:

Shalini Yog
Deputy Director
T: +91 11 2685 4405 / 2651 6695
E: shalini.yog@in.boell.org