BARC Trust conducted a study with support of UNICEF on current roles of Sathins and the challenge faced by them and how can they best contribute in achieving the women and child related SDGs. The primary purpose of the study was to understand the roles that Sathins are performing in the current context including some of their major accomplishments, identify the challenges faced by Sathins and recommend actions that can support the two departments in strengthening the role of Sathins especially vis-à-vis the State Women’s Policy and localization of women and child related SDGs.

The study adopted a mixed methods approach using both quantitative and qualitative information collected through both primary and secondary sources of data. Secondary data was collected through literature review covering available articles, reports, monographs as well as information collected from the two departments. For primary data a randomized sampling approach was adopted for identifying an ideal mix of Sathins, Sathin Supervisors, Sarpanch, Village Development Officers, Block Development Officers, Deputy/ Additional Director of Women Empowerment and Chief Executive Officers of Zilla Parishads. The information was collected using both Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) and Focused Group Discussions (FGDs). Report of the study was published jointly by UNICE and DWCD, GoR, acknowledging BARC’s contributions.

Challenges faced by Sathins: Sathins asserted that their roles and responsibilities are not clearly specified, which is further affected by lack of inter-departmental coordination. Trainings of Sathins are too few and far between. Sathins work at the gram panchayat level catering on an average, to a population of nearly 5000 individuals of which nearly half would be women. When compared with the other frontline functionaries operating within the gram panchayat jurisdiction the honorarium received by Sathins, despite an increase over time, continues to be very low. Sathins do not have a dedicated office space to work or to keep their records. Sathins also stated that, opposition from elderly and influential people, and being seen as against the established socio-cultural norms and traditions all act as hindrances. However, when faced with these challenges they often do not get the desired support from the system.

The study found that the sathins can play the important roles as gender and child rights catalyst and made following key recommendations:

• Sathins roles in health, nutrition and formation of SGHs should be deprioritised / dropped as there are other frontline workers / programmes working in those areas.
• Sathins can form village level groups of adolescent boys and girls.
• The jajam meetings should be linked with the quarterly Mahila Sabha meetings
• Sathins role in spreading awareness and linking women and girls with government schemes and services such as One Stop Crisis Centre and Mahila Salah Evam Suraksha Kendras should not only continue but also be strengthened by establishing a formal referral mechanism wherein it becomes easy to ascertain and quantify her contribution in referring and linking women and girls with government schemes and support services.
• A niche role for Sathins can also be explored in creating awareness on women’s and girls’ land/ property rights and asset ownership, linkages with economic empowerment schemes of the government, etc.
• Sathins can also play a key role in strengthening the operationalization of localization of SDGs approach especially focusing on improving women’s participation in Mahila Sabha, Gram Sabha and GPDP process, conducting an annual ‘safety audit’ in gram panchayat and linking the findings with the GPDP process etc.