Among the latest national proposals to provide restorative justice and rehabilitation to women victims of rape and sexual assault, the Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi has announced Nirbhaya Centres or One-Stop Crisis Centres (OSCC) will be set up in all districts. Each will have paramedical staff, ambulance service, a retired police officer to help lodge the FIR, counsellors, lawyers, short-stay shelter with food and clothing, and video conferencing facility.
States such as Maharashtra have written to the Union Ministry pointing out the limitations of a “static” centre. “In case of trauma, or sexual violence, it is the state which should reach out the victim, who may find it cumbersome to access district centres. We are instead training local thana staff and some district hospitals staff as the District Trauma Team. When an incident is reported, it is the trained staff that will reach the victim. Starting from half or two third, gradually, all staff will be trained,” said Ujwal Uke, Principal Secretary, Women and Child Development, Government of Maharashtra.
Lawyer and women's rights activist Flavia Agnes says the government’s proposal was hasty and did not spell out details. “Why will the complainant travel all the way to a district centre in case she is based in a village; why will district centre register a FIR if the thana will not, and how will a retired police officer be equipped to do this? Even Protection Officers appointed in each districts under Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 do not function in several states,” said Ms. Agnes.
“The scheme makes no reference to children’s needs despite an overwhelming number of cases of sexual assault, over 70 per cent, concern children,” she added.
Existing centres
In India, prior to this, the Department of Health and Family Welfare had set up Bhoomika centres in hospitals in Kerala in 2010 so only trained personnel handle cases of gender-based violence. In Mumbai, Dilaasa, an OSCC is run out of public hospitals with support from NGO CEHAT.
Most recently, on June 16, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare inaugurated “Gauravi” as an OSCC for gender-based violence in a government hospital in Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh. The centre is being run with support from NGO Action Aid.
The centre has received 1379 calls, and registered 323 cases of violence with the police in five weeks. Data from its fifth week, July 13-19, 2014, show it got 247 calls, after which the centre got 10 domestic violence cases, and four cases for rapes registered with the police, including two “Zero FIRs” for cases from outside Bhopal. A fourth of the cases in this week were from outside Bhopal.
“We have been housed in a large one-bed room in the hospital close to the Emergency Ward. A family of three women from Hoshangabad, 70 km away, stayed with us a few days after their village tried to target them as witches; a 13-year old minor who is nine months pregnant stayed with us four weeks and is now admitted to the hospital,” said Sarika Sinha, MP Coordinator Action Aid. National Rural Health Mission official Faiz A Kidwai said the state government now planned to replicate the centres to all district centres in MP.
“Ultimately, the local thana and local health centre must be trained to respond sensitively. But OSSC centres in districts can work well too if information on them is publicised and there is scrutiny on them for accountability. Travel assistance could be provided to victims located in remote parts of the district,” said Sandeep Chachra of Action Aid.
OSCC in each police district was one of the recommendations of the Usha Mehra Commission set up after protests in Delhi against rape in December 2012. The model is based on such centres set up in Malaysia in 1996, which were replicated in Bangladesh and Thailand.
