Kerala Cabinet approves women, elderly policies

The Kerala Cabinet on Wednesday gave approval to ‘Women’s Policy 2026.’

With this, the women’s policy of 2009 has been revised and updated with the objective of creating a ‘new’ Kerala that stands with its women. The new policy prioritises women’s safety, labour rights, and laws in tune with the changing times and also focusses on women in tribal and coastal areas.

The policy aims at ending all discrimination against women, irrespective of caste, religion, or gender and ensuring equal representation for them in all sectors of society. It also aims at ensuring equal representation for women in administration—legislature and various decision-making committees. It promises to ensure gender justice in education, labour, and health sectors. It will encourage democratisation of family, education and cultural spaces, public spaces and making them gender-friendly.

Elderly policy

The Cabinet also approved the Kerala State Policy for Elder Persons.

The policy aims at encouraging active and healthy ageing to ensure the physical, emotional, and social welfare of the elderly. It seeks to improve integrated care mechanisms with the support of local bodies, health workers, and voluntary organisations.

It adopts a lifecycle approach with focus on health, lifelong learning, and skill development for an engaging and creative period.

Ensuring financial and social security of the elderly; inclusivity and gender equality; firming ties between generation so as utilise the knowledge and experience of the elderly to guide and support the younger generations; integrating differently abled frameworks with focus on basic facilities and assistive technology; and expansion of long-term and palliative care mechanisms; are some of the other objectives of the policy.