Aishwarya Ravindra Bedre, Advocate and Presently pursuing LL.M (Corporate and Commercial Laws) from Maharashtra National Law University Mumbai (Batch: 2021-22)
ABSTRACT
Gender is used to describe the characteristics of women and men that are socially constructed.1 There is no universal definition of the term “gender justice” and it is often interchangeably used with terms such as “gender equality” or “gender equity”. Goetz defines “gender justice” as the ending of, and the provision of redress for, inequalities between women and men that result in women's subordination to men.2 Gender equality is defined as the absence of discrimination on the basis of a person's sex in opportunities, the allocation of resources and benefits, or access to services.3 And gender equity refers to the fairness and justice in the distribution of benefits and responsibilities between women and men.4 Therefore, the concept of gender justice is wider because it also identifies the duty and responsibility on the part of the social institutions to provide justice to those who are deprived of equal rights and opportunities.
All over the world, women have been considered as the weaker section of society since time unmemorable. Women always had to face violations of their basic rights, as their rights have never been considered a priority. Even law has at various times given a subordinate status to a woman only because of gender, which has resulted in their poor overall development. The same has been the situation in India as well. Because of such discrimination, women have had to face issues such as female foeticide, lack of education, inadequate healthcare, pay disparity, domestic violence, sexual harassment, human trafficking, forced prostitution, so on and so forth. India ranks 140 out of 156 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2021 rankings5, which is quite alarming (the Global Gender Gap Index is calculated on the basis of the following four parameters: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival and political empowerment).
In India, as there is no Uniform Civil Code yet, the laws relating to marriage, divorce, succession, child adoption, maintenance are governed by the personal laws of each religion. In all these personal laws, regardless of which religion they pertain to, there is an inherent bias against the women in various provisions which leads to the violation of their basic rights. In this research paper, the researcher scrutinizes such kinds of provisions in the Hindu personal laws.
