NEW DELHI: Several women's groups have asked the Government to set up a committee on the status of Self Help Groups (SHGs) to review the existing perspective, policies and programmes related to them to strengthen their potential for addressing the social, economic and political rights of women.

The States and other institutions engaged with these groups should make available the data related to achievements in women's empowerment and literacy which should also be disaggregated by caste and class categories to enable a realistic assessment, according to a report "SHGs, Empowerment and Poverty Alleviation" released by Anandi, Nirantar and Yungantar here on Tuesday.

While SHGs have been viewed as a strategy for both women's empowerment and poverty reduction, there has been little dialogue on SHGs between civil actors and policy makers regarding the expectations from SHGs, the ground level realities as well as possible ways of strengthening them, the report said.

The key findings of the study are that participation in SHGs has enabled women to gain access to credit for crisis and consumption related needs, it has put the burden of saving and repayment primarily on women.

Women have also little control over the use of credit that they have brought to the family.

Further, 64 per cent of the Government-sponsored groups never took up social issues, domestic violence was addressed only in 11 per cent of SHGs and sexual violence issues were taken up only by 4 per cent SHGs. As high as 47 per cent SHGs do not receive any capacity building inputs and only 39 per cent SHGs were literate.

Also, interior and tribal villages have not benefited from the SHGs and neither have the SCs and women headed households.

Since there are no men in the SHGs, there is resistance to women's entry in local market and political structures, and resistance within the family.

Micro finance is not the solution to poverty or empowerment. For women's empowerment to be addressed, women need to be enabled to define their priorities and demand their rights.

The role of the State should be focussed on ensuring quality governance, for which the SHGs and voluntary organisations should be viewed as mechanisms for engagement of marginalised groups and women.

The recommendations emerge from two studies undertaken by Nirantar in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat and 2,700 SHGs in 17 States.

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