Indian women denied voice in decision making: Kofi Annan

Nobel laureate and former United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan has said women in India are still denied the right to take decisions, which have an impact on their lives.

Annan was addressing the 14th Delhi Sustainable Development Summit in New Delhi, where he said that despite marked progress in India and elsewhere, the society faces the challenge of eliminating gender discrimination and continues to strive for equality.

"In India and elsewhere, women continue to be denied opportunities to have a voice in decisions that affect their lives," said Annan.

He added that women and girls are major drivers of development in any society and therefore people must dedicate themselves to transforming relations between men and women at all levels of society.

Annan also stressed on bridging the continuous gender gap in education and said it was the greatest investment any country can make.

"In too many countries, women face unacceptably high levels of violence, including sexual violence, which is an affront to our common humanity," Annan added.

External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, was also present during the summit.

Some Indian laws promote a preference for sons over daughters, the United Nations had stated in November 2013 in a report that highlights the country's struggle to reverse a long-term decline in the number of girls.

Bans on child marriage, pre-natal sex selection tests and dowries are poorly enforced, while laws excluding daughters and widows from inheriting land still exist, a study by the U.N. World Population Fund (UNFPA) found.

According to the U.N. Gender Equality Index, India has one of the worst gender differentials in child mortality of any country, ranking 132 out of 148 nations, worse than Pakistan and Bangladesh.

In much of India, a preference for male children is built into cultural ideology. Sons are traditionally viewed as the breadwinners who will carry on the family name and perform the last rites of the parents - an important ritual in many faiths.

Girls are often seen as a burden that parents can ill afford, largely due to the hefty dowry of cash and gold jewelry that is required to marry them off.