Child marriage is a form of gender-based violence and a result and driver of gender

inequality and gender discrimination. Experts predict that the COVID-19 pandemic is set to
reverse 25 years of progress, which saw child marriage rates decline. In fact, Save the
Children analysis revealed a further 2.5 million girls at risk of marriage by 2025 because of
the pandemic—the greatest surge in child marriage rates in nearly three decades .

Gender equality remains unfinished business in every country of the world. Women and
girls have less access to education and healthcare, too often lack economic autonomy
and are under-represented in decision-making at all levels. The progress that has been
made towards gender equality over the past quarter of a century, though slow and
incremental, does however show that change is possible.

Power and decision-making remain overwhelmingly dominated by men. Women’s representation

in parliaments has more than doubled from 11 per cent in 1995, but men still hold three quarters
of seats. Men also hold 73 per cent of management positions and are 70 per cent of climate
negotiators.

Gender equality remains unfinished business in every country of the world. Women and girls have
less access to education and healthcare, too often lack economic autonomy and are under-
represented in decision-making at all levels. 

Globally, women aged 25-34 globally are 25 per cent more likely than men to live in
extreme poverty. Most of these women lack access to social protection and public
services that would provide them with sustainable routes out of poverty.

Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW, 1979), discrimination remains commonplace in law and
practice. On one hand, 131 countries have added 274 gender-related reforms to laws and
regulations over the past decade, however it is estimated that more than 2.5 billion women and
girls live in countries with at least one discriminatory law on the books.

About a quarter of Indians (23%) say there is “a lot of discrimination” against women
in their country. And 16% of Indian women reported that they personally had faced
discrimination because of their gender in the 12 months before the 2019-2020
survey.

In addition, three-quarters of adults see violence against women as a very big problem in
Indian society. To improve women’s safety, about half of Indian adults (51%) say it is more
important to teach boys to “respect all women” than to teach girls to “behave appropriately.”
On the whole, however, Indians seem to share an egalitarian vision of women’s place in
society. Eight-in-ten people surveyed – including 81% of Hindus and 76% of Muslims – say it
is very important for women to have the same rights as men

The gender gap in India has widened to 62.5%, largely due to women’s
inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, decrease in
women’s labour force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male
literacy ratio, income inequality.
The report is a measure of gender gap on four parameters: economic
participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and
political empowerment. The index has benchmarked 156 nations across the globe
in 2021. The data show that it will take 135.6 years to bridge the gender gap
worldwide and the pandemic has impacted women more severely than men. 
The report states that the country fared the worst in political empowerment,
regressing from 23.9% to 9.1%. Its ranking on the health and survival dimension is
among the five worst performers.