Women remain unsafe at home

Despite a year of enforcement of the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act 2006, there are still many cases of domestic violence even today, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Oct 24, 2007, 01:44:55 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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LITTLE AWARENESS and slow action on the part of the state governments have been cited as major reasons for the poor results of the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act, 2006, a year after it was enforced.

According to the National Family Health Survey-3, about one-third women in the 15-49 age group face physical violence and one-tenth sexual violence. About 37 per cent of married women were victims of domestic violence while 25 per cent suffered physical or sexual violence at the hands of their husbands in the 12 months preceding the survey.

Women activists like Indira Jaisingh of Lawyers Initiative and Ranjana Kumari of Women Power Connect say successful implementation of the law can help these women. But so far, implementation in many states has been found wanting. “Protection officers are key to proper implementation of the law. In some states, anganwadi workers have been made protection officers. Since they may not be in a position to pursue a case with a magistrate, it makes the law ineffective,” Kumari said.

A study by Lawyers Initiative has found several loopholes in implementation. Almost all states — except Haryana, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Punjab and Rajasthan — have appointed protection officers but only two states, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi, have appointed them on full-time basis. Protection officers are required, under law, to lodge a complaint with the magistrate, on behalf of the victim, and pursue the case.

Only five states — Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh — have appointed service providers. Under law, service providers (mostly NGOs) are to act as facilitators between the women and protection officers because the protection officers may not be able to reach all the women in their areas. “In the absence of service providers, victims of domestic violence are not able to reach the protection officers,” said a Women and Child Development Ministry official.

The study, to be released on October 26, also says that only 12 states have provided medical facilities and shelters for victims, as required under law. “Government sponsored support facilities are not adequate in meeting the need,” it states.

The study goes on to say that police personnel need to be trained on dealing with women who approach them with complaints of domestic violence. In many cases, the police have been found to be turning away victims. Under law, the police are required to inform the protection officers about the complaints.

The study cites Andhra Pradesh as having the best infrastructure to implement the law. There, police, legal services authorities and protection officers function in coordination to facilitate the provision of relief to women complaining against domestic violence.

According to the study, only 7,913 applications were filed under the law till July 2007. Most of these are pending in courts of law. Rajasthan accounted for the highest number of applications (3,440), followed by Kerala (1,028). Less than 50 cases were filed in 10 states (Assam, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Manipur, Orissa, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura and West Bengal). No cases were filed in four states (Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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