A Situational Analysis of Women and Girls in Chhattisgarh

Abstract

Chhattisgarh is a new state facing many challenges. One of the major challenges facing women is the rapid breakdown of traditional tribal and non tribal society and the rapid penetration of globalized visions of development and the stresses and tensions that are created in the process. The contradictory pulls and pushes of customary laws relating to women in the many communities of Chhattisgarh, and their breakdown and distortion in the process of integration of the state into mainstream public life is another major issue of which we do not have adequate understanding and documentation at the present moment. Civil society structures are relatively weak and fragmented and this is another challenge. Women in the new state have a long way to go, and if this status study can serve as a benchmark document on which to base strategies and action plans in the years to come, its purpose will have been more than fulfilled.