With the objectives to include domain expertise, to ensure that
no relevant information is omitted from the document and to
bring together a brilliant team who could take up the task and
successfully and responsibly complete it, a Sub-Committee on
Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women (CEDAW) was constituted under the chairpersonship of
Smt. Jyotika Kalra, Hon’ble Member, NHRC in May 2020.
The rationale behind constituting the Sub-committee was also
to have resource persons to examine whether the legislations,
policies and schemes meet the requirements of the articles of
the CEDAW and thereafter, make recommendations to fill the
existing gaps. The recommendations would then be sent to the
concerned ministries and authorities to take necessary action.
The domain experts who served as Members of the Subcommittee (Hereafter Members) and contributed to this study
throughout include: Dr Indu Agnihotri former Director CWDS and
former Special Monitor (Women), NHRC; Prof. (Dr.) Manoj Kumar
Sinha, Director and Professor, ILI; Dr Charu Walikhanna, Advocate
Supreme Court of India , Ex-Member, NCW; Ms. Madhu Mehra,
Director, PLD and Advocate.
Throughout the writing of this document, other than the
Members, expert contributions were made by distinguished
special invitees such as: Ms Asha Kowtal, Gen. Secretary, All India
Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch (AIDMAM); Sh Ajeet Singh, Director,
Guria (India); Ms Nishtha Satyam, former Deputy Country
Representative, UN Women Office for India; Dr Vijay Raghavan,
Professor, Tata Institute of Social Sciences; Prof. (Dr.) Neerja
Bhatla, AIIMS; Ms. N Sarojini, Founder, SAMA - Resource Group
for Women and Health; Ms Pompi Banerjee, Sanjog.
The NHRC In-house team that contributed to this study includes
the former Secretary General of the NHRC, Shri Jaideep Govind;
Shri Bimbadhar Pradhan, Secretary General, NHRC; Ms. Anita
Sinha, Joint Secretary; Dr. M.D.S. Tyagi, Joint Director (Research);
Dr. Seemi Azam, Research Officer and Junior Research
5
Consultants Ms. Atishya Kumar, Ms. Diana Thomas, Ms. Chandrali
Sarkar, Ms. Nihal Kaur and Ms. Sakshi Thapar.
As per the Government guidelines and keeping in view the
COVID-19 situation, a few meetings after the first meeting of
the Sub-committee were organised online on Webex platform
and as the situation allowed, they were converted into hybrid
mode, i.e, the members or the special invitees who were
present in New Delhi or those who found it convenient joined
the meeting in-person in the Commission premises. Besides
thirteen formal Sub-committee meetings, approximately fifty
in-house meetings in the duration of seventeen months with
the first meeting on 2nd June 2020 and the final meeting on 12th
November 2020 were held under the chairpersonship of Hon’ble
Member Smt. Jyotika Kalra. The general pattern was that an
initial draft chapter was compiled, a copy of which was then
emailed to the members seeking their contributions, comments,
and suggestions. After incorporating them into the draft, a
revised copy was shared with the members. A Sub-committee
meeting would then be organised after that in which all members
would meet and discuss their comments. Following this, the
chapter would be finalised in the post-meeting of the internal
team, a copy of which was shared with the members. The first
meeting was concluded with the finalisation of the sub-themes
on which various chapters would be written. Thereafter, all the
consecutive meetings were dedicated to each chapter of the
document.
Structure of the Study
This analytical study has been strategically structured to aid the
understanding of the reader regarding CEDAW and the status of
implementation of CEDAW articles in India. To begin with, the
main content of the document has been classified into 9 theme
based chapters.
Each chapter focuses on specified CEDAW Articles, for