Women Empowerment in Kashmir

The research on women empowerment reveals that in Kashmir the attention of planners and programme implementers is required. Policy decisions based on research findings are rooted to the ground, and therefore have the capacity to bring about improvement in the situation, whether it is with regard to health practices, income generation, domestic violence or rights of women. As research is a vital input for development, planners, administrators and researchers are therefore looking out for social factors that have the potential to impact the outcomes of various programmes. With this aim in view, the documentation of the Norwegian Agency for International Development (NORAD), Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK) and Athwaas and other self-help groups’ documents make us familiar with the degree of women empowerment in the widely scattered areas of Kashmir. The research abstract on women empowerment is a new way of challenging and overcoming barriers in one’s life through which the individual increases her ability to shape her life and environment. Women empowerment cannot be rigidly defined particularly in a situation like ours where there exist a lot of differences among women in different sectors, such as rural versus urban women, the public sector versus those in the newline, and educated women in the private sector versus uneducated women in Kashmir.