Young Women Expect Safety & Jobs From The Next Government

With the General Elections just a few months away, there is quite an enthusiasm, especially among the young voters. College-going students are nervous about their new-found responsibility as first-time voters, but they also have demands and want the next government that comes to power to hear them out and address their needs.

Considering that India has the highest youth demographic than the rest of the world and the country has around 600 million people under the age of 25 which is more than half of India’s population, it is a strong force we are talking about here. Youth in the country are not just a strong force but also a strong vote bank for political parties. So it is only logical to know what the women in this demography demand from the government.

SheThePeople.TV team visited the Kamala Nehru College of Delhi University recently and asked the women students about the top issues that the future elected government should address when it comes to power. We found out that college girls face panic over two issues—women’s safety and scarcity of jobs in the country as the recent NSSO survey revealed that the unemployment rate has skyrocketed to the highest in the last 45 years.

SCARCITY OF JOBS

Malavika P M, a student of second year, BA Honours (Journalism), said, “There is a major problem of unemployment in the country. Even people who are highly-qualified, have PhD and double-degrees have no jobs so we seriously need employment opportunities in every sector.”

“There are several government departments and offices that have several seats lying vacant and if we do have qualified youth in our country, then why are these jobs vacant?” questioned Kunjika Thakral.

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IMPLEMENTATION OF SAFETY SCHEMES LOW

Another student, Snegdha Gupta of the same department said, “For me, safety is one of the biggest issues that the government needs to address and it is high time now. We see all kinds of issues taken up in the parliament — even the most trivial issues are highly debated but women’s safety is one issue that’s constantly neglected. Even today, women in colleges suffer from gender discriminatory rules violating our right to equality, this is our definite concern.”

“The problem is with the mindset of men which is why women feel unsafe and we see no efforts being made to set it right by the government. They don’t want to tamper with that because our lawmakers are mostly men and when there won’t be enough women and young women in the decision-making positions, then how are we ever going to find the right resolve?”

“We hear the government announcing a lot of initiatives and schemes, but we don’t feel the benefits reaching us at all. Especially when it comes to resolving safety issues, I don’t think that they implement the schemes to the extent that they promise. So even if they raise the issue once or twice, we don’t see any implementation to feel safer while walking the roads or taking public transport,” said Spenta Jassawala.”

Rene Attri, who is studying Psychology Honours and is in the third year, pointed out that even today, the government, misses out on the root cause of safety issue among women. “The problem is with the mindset of men, which is why women feel unsafe and we see no efforts being made to set it right by the government. They don’t want to tamper with that because our lawmakers are mostly men and when there won’t be enough women and young women in the decision-making positions, then how are we ever going to find the right resolve?” noted Attri.

All the women students raised concern towards the meagre number of women in politics and demand for higher representation of women parliamentarians. They say that it wouldn’t just bring equality but also bring justice and diversity of opinions in policies.