Government To Set Up 9 Aid Centres In Other Countries To Help Indian Women Facing Violence
As of a March 2021, in a report by UN Women, it was revealed that globally, an estimated 736 million women are subject to some sort of violence, either at the hands of an intimate partner or a non-partner. And considering the number of cases that are reported on the daily about women being violated, harassed or even killed, the statistics aren’t all too shocking, though they are extremely disturbing. And perhaps, keeping the worrying state of women in mind, the Indian government has decided to make an efforts into helping women out, especially the ones living abroad.
With a view to lend a helping hand to the Indian women who have been suffering violence abroad, the Women and Child Development (WCD) Ministry, in collaboration with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has come up with the idea of setting up One-Stop Centres (OSC) at 10 Indian missions to help Indian women in need.
The OSC scheme is the same scheme that came into being after the horrific and tragic Nirbhaya case back in 2012, where a woman was brutally gang-raped in a moving bus and mutilated to the point that she could not survive. Through the scheme, the government now aims to provide police, medical, legal, psychological aid as well as offer temporary yet safe shelter to women who had been victims to such violence.
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Good initiative by Ministry of Women and Child Development under the leadership of @smritiirani ji, which will set up One-Stop Centres (OSC) — the Ministry’s scheme aimed at supporting women affected by violence in public and private spaces.https://t.co/YHZ3KOpqXe
— Nishant🇮🇳 (@iNishant4) May 26, 2021
WCD Ministry Secretary Ram Mohan Mishra spoke with ThePrint as he remarked, “In collaboration with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), we will set up OSCs in 10 missions in nine countries. This will include two in Saudi Arabia and one each in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, UAE, Australia, Canada, and Singapore.”
Even though the centers have been only set up in India as of now, the target is to establish them abroad soon enough. It is being reported that almost 733 OSCs have been approved by the government all across India, of which 700 are fully operational.
In the meantime, the WCD Ministry has also come up with a new initiative to protect the victims that are to be summoned to the court. Keeping in mind the several instances, where victims who were due to give their testimony were attacked before they could appear before the judge, making this scheme all the more important. Officials have said, that under this scheme, women will be provided with shelter, food and transport to attend court hearings and hopefully be protected from violence.
Furthermore to this, the scheme is said to have been allotted a sum of 74 crore Rs. which would be utilised to offer legal aid to women who would either have been abandoned by the families, due to social stigma around rape, pregnancies or sexual assault. The thought behind the schemes and initiatives is indeed the need of the hour, and while it is relieving to see authorities step in to do their bit, the real challenge would be the implementation, which we are hoping won’t disappoint.
