Women's Empowerment
In addition to caste discrimination, Dalit women suffer further marginalisation because of their gender.
- Malnutrition: India has exceptionally high rates of child malnutrition, because tradition in India requires that women eat last and least throughout their lives, even when pregnant and lactating. Malnourished women give birth to malnourished children, perpetuating the cycle.
- Poor Health: Females receive less health care than males. Many women die in childbirth of easily prevented complications. Working conditions and environmental pollution further impairs women's health.
Lack of education: Families are far less likely to educate girls than boys, and far more likely to pull them out of school, either to help out at home or from fear of violence.
Overwork: Women's work is more arduous than men's, and usually for longer hours, yet their toil is unrecognized.
Mistreatment: In recent years, there has been an alarming rise in atrocities against women in India, in terms of rapes, assaults and dowry-related murders. Fear of violence suppresses the aspirations of all women. Female infanticide and sex-selective abortions are additional forms of violence that reflect the devaluing of females in Indian society.
Powerlessness: While women are guaranteed equality under the constitution, legal protection has little effect in the face of prevailing patriarchal traditions. Women lack power to decide who they will marry, and are often married off as children. Legal loopholes are used to deny women inheritance rights. 
In recent years Karuna has prioritised projects that enable women from the poorest communities to secure their basic rights, recognising that when women are empowered the benefits can spread throughout entire communities.
Karuna funds initiatives that bring local women together to find solutions to their own difficulties, creating the sense of empowerment that comes with greater self-reliance:
Community Mobilisation
Literacy Classes
Microfinance savings groups
Print this page | Back to top
Your gift could help transform the lives of thousands of South Asia's oppressed.
Find out more about how to donate
![Karuna : Compassion in action [link to homepage]](http://www.karuna.org/images/logo.png){kind=logo}