A sociological study on awareness of human rights among women

Abstract

Human rights as the very term indicates represent the rights of all human beings, of both the sex – men and women. It had identified the gender equality, in accessibility of human rights. Women represent almost half of the total population of India. But gender inequality and gender discrimination are the main features of Indian society. Women have been denied equal rights for centuries. The plight of women in general is distressing and their conditions in society are deplorable. Various social evils led to the deprivation of women. In modern India, however, some improvement has been taken place in the status of women. But still woman do not enjoy as much freedom and liberties as men do. Crimes against women are increasing day by day. There has been a constant rise in dowry deaths, bride burning, rape, molestation, kidnapping, and illegal confinement. A study was carried out with the sample of 100 women from various fields like labourers, illiterates, housewife’s, college students, teachers, lecturers, lawyers, bank employees, nurses, doctors in Hassan city of Karnataka state. For this study, qualitative method was used; data was collected from 100 women by using simple random sampling. The present paper aims to find out the level of awareness of human rights ensured by Constitutional safeguards among women and to study the degree of awareness about the protection of women’s rights by the Indian Penal Code. The main finding of the study shown that the majority of women are not aware of the importance of the concept ‘Human rights’ and its impact in improving the statues of women.