KILA RAIPUR : Bias apparent as women participants get smaller prize money
OF the nearly 600 participants in the Kila Raipur Rural Olympics this year, not more than 100 were women. Only four women’s teams came to take part in the hockey event. Similar was the case with kabaddi. When it came to athletics competitions, only five women participants were seen in the 800m race while in the 5000m women’s race too there were no participants until the afternoon of the day of the event and hence it was delayed until the evening.
Though arrangements were made at the games for women players, yet women’s participation remained low in general. Teams from cities rarely come to take part in the rural games, said one of the participants on the condition of anonymity.
Even as the organisers made several announcements about the Kila Raipur games being a platform for equality between men and women, a sharp difference in prize money was seen in all the events that had been scheduled in the men’s as well as women’s categories. In kabaddi, for instance, while the top two teams in the men’s category will get Rs 51,000 and Rs 31,000 respectively, the women’s teams will get Rs 20,000 and Rs 15,000 as the first and second prizes respectively.
In hockey, due to fewer teams taking part, just one open category was slotted for women while the men played in senior and junior categories. The men will get Rs 21,000 and Rs 15,000 as the first and second prizes respectively in the junior category while in the senior category this prize money would be Rs 31,000 and Rs 21,000 respectively. In the women’s section, however, Rs 15,000 and Rs 10,000 have been kept as the prize money.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/few-women-teams-in-rural-games/582706/
