Kashmir
The society is patriarchal with rigidly defined gender roles. More than half of the women's population work at home. Their labour as home-makers or in the field is not counted since it does not hold any monetary value. They are not decision makers. This has had an adverse impact on girl's education. Religious ignorance has also played a major role in the subordination of women and in defining their role in the household and the society at large. The effects (widowhood) of militancy and the conflict in Kashmir have forced many of its women to find employment. However, lack of education and skill development has adversely affected their income earning capacity.
In the rural areas of Kashmir the educational facilities, beyond the mixed primary schools are insufficient. The school drop-out rates for girls is 22.3 percent. This has resulted in early marriages, high fertility rates and an overall marginalisation of women.
A significant number of girl children work for petty wages. Regular income of women has not translated into economic independence. They are not involved with any decision making process, even when it involves their own healthcare. Government programmes and schemes have not benefited them much either.
Jammu
An estimated 4,00,000 Kashmiri Pandits - about 95 per cent of the original population in the valley, became 'internal refugees' when they were forced to leave their homes as a result of militancy. The government provided them the bare minimum humanitarian relief.
About 200,000 Pandits still live in abysmal conditions in Jammu with families of five to six, huddled into a small room - 10x12 sq feet in size.
With no privacy, proper sanitation nor protection from extreme weather, people are dying of snakebite, heat stroke, stress, insomnia, trauma, depression and hypertension.
The mass migration has also resulted in high death and low birth rates. A study based on inquiries at various migrant camps in Jammu and Delhi revealed that there had been only 16 births as compared to 49 deaths in about 300 families between 1990 and 1995 - a period over which militancy was at its peak. Family life is under great strain; the divorce rate in the prime fertility age group has increased.
Various constraints (space, financial, environmental etc.) that life in the Camps brings with itself, have hampered the development of the children. In the one-room tenements that they have been forced to live in, the entire family has to stay together and the concept of privacy does not even exist; there is no space to study – not even to change. Because parents are busy fighting for the primary necessities of life, they either do not have enough time or the peace of mind to worry about their children’s development other than the basic requirement of enrollment to school. There is a very real danger of the catastrophe that shook the entire community affecting its young, for no fault of theirs.