Hi,
There seems to be views supporting separate toilets for women. Here is an article that appeared in the Financial Express.
Work Space
FE WOMEN EMPOWERED IS INDIA EMPOWERED
Equal opportunities still elude womenGender-sensitive labour laws can help women secure their rights at the workplaceKiran Yadav The issue of laws concerning women in the workplace resurfaced recently with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking the labour ministry to get its act in place. The direction came after he reviewed the progress made by various ministries in the last two years while addressing the issue of women's empowerment, both social and legislative, and found that labour laws have been by far neglected in terms of amendment.
The National Commission for Women has asked for amendments to several labour laws. These include Equal Remuneration Act, Maternity Benefit Act, Bonded Labour Abolition Act, Plantation Labour Act, Payment of Wages Act and Child Labour Act, Factories Act, Minimum Wages Act, etc which provide inter alia, crèche facilities, time off for feeding children during working hours, provision of maternity leave and separate toilets for female and male workers near the workplace amongst others.
“There are other radical clauses that must be brought in place at the earliest. Majority of the complaints that we get are of sexual harassment. The law strictly needs amendments to be effective and empowering. We also need complaint committees in every organisation to redress women's grievances. Wage discrimination and security of women are vital issues. Organisations where women are working in night shifts must provide commuting facilities,” says National Commission for Women chairperson Girija Vyas. J John, executive director, Center for Education and Communication and the editor of Labour File agrees, “Feminisation of labour is manifesting in several sectors today and so are blatant instances of gender discrimination along with a grave threat to women'S security. Gender sensitivity is the need of the hour. We need the supporting structures, institutional framework and enforcement mechanism for the existing laws. For instance, in my opinion, the Maternity Benefit Act needs to be extended to more sectors - even agricultural sector.” Women lag significantly behind males in terms of work participation and employment. Of the 92.28 million workers in urban India, only 16.10 million are females. In rural areas, out of 310 million, 111 million are females. Moreover, 42.95% of the rural female working population is involved as agricultural labour and not in cultivation. Total employment of women in organised sector is only 18%. Dr Anupam V Sinha, from the Centre for Feminist Legal Research, believes that education and decision making roles are central to women empowerment. “The inequality in the labour market is rooted in inequality at home, which in turn is rooted in fundamental assumptions about women's biology, psyche and social roles. Employers pay women less because they believe them to be less skilled than men! Even in places where explicit efforts have been made, women continue to earn 50-80% of men wages.” Also, according to the latest Women and Men in India report published by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation, gender discrimination is also evident from the differences prevalent in the average daily wages of female and male regular salaried employees as well as casual labourers. In urban areas, men get Rs 25 more than women casual labourers while the difference is Rs 15 in the rural areas. Women's issues lawyer Harpreet Singh says “though many of the existing laws do ensure prohibition of discrimination, the government has so far not enacted a separate anti-discrimination law. “No law is sacrosanct - amendments are essential. Though implementation is a problem in India, we cannot deny that a law is like a potent weapon to fight for your cause and against injustice,” she emphasises. The government's II and III periodic report on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination again Women, 2005, says that the unorganised sector workers, constituting 93% of the total work force, do not get welfare benefits like their counterparts in the organised sector. It is estimated that out of the female labour force in India, more than 90% are in the unorganised sector. The government is proposing to introduce the Unorganised Sector Workers' Bill, which proposes to regulate the employment and conditions of services and provide for their safety, social security, health and welfare. Says Madhu Kishwar, editor, Manushi, “The government machinery functions like a extortionist mafia. First, they should stop harassing street vendors and other unorganised sector women and give them the freedom to earn a livelihood. We don't want any more labour legislations, just a law to get the government servants to behave lawfully.” Female literacy levels have markedly increased, so has the sex ratio of women — indicating that inequalities have gradually reduced. However, there still remains a lot to be done to ensure that women get equal opportunities at the workplace.