Women’s Rights are Human Rights and provisions under Indian Constitution

Abstract

One of the core principles of human rights discourse and United Nations values is the principle of Gender equality. A fundamental principle of the United Nations Charter adopted by world leaders in 1945 is "equal rights of men and women", and protecting and promoting women's human right is the responsibility of all States. At the United Nation’s Fourth World Conference on Women in Bejing on September 5, 1995, the then first lady of the United States Hillary Clinton used the term “Women’s Rights are Human Rights”. Her speech in effect made a forceful argument that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as separate from human rights. And rightly so, there cannot be any distinction between men and women as far as human rights are concerned.
In case of India, founding fathers of our nation were very determined to provide equal human rights protection to both women and men. The Constitution of India is one of the finest “equality documents” in the world. It provides provisions to secure equality in general and gender equality in particular. Various articles in the Constitution safeguard women’s rights by putting them at par with men socially, politically and economically. The Preamble, the Fundamental Rights, DPSPs and other constitutional provisions provide several general and special safeguards to secure women’s human rights.