The
Constitution of India provides for special treatment of women, guarantees
equality and prohibits discrimination. The government of India has been
strengthening various laws focused on women and children. This has been more
visible since the Beijing CEDAW Conference. The recent years have been witness
to some landmark interpretations and directives related to Violence against
Women. Despite the constitutional mandate of equal legal status for men and
women, the same is yet to be realized. The dejure laws have not been
translated into defacto situation for various reasons such as
illiteracy, social practices, prejudices, cultural norms based on patriarchal
values, poor representation of women in policy-making, poverty, regional
disparity in development, lack of access and opportunity to information and
resources, etc. The ground situation more or less remains the same.
Most
of the laws come with various institutional machinery, partnership between
various stakeholders and active role of NGOs. These institutions need to be in
existence in order for the law to be effective. Also the policies and
programmes made at the top takes a long time to percolate to the bottom and
there is an urgent need of sharing information and resoursces.
The
awareness on laws and access to justice remains dismal. At the district and the
state level sensitivity on women rights among judicial officers, administration
and the police is very low. This leads to a situation where the implementation
of the law becomes difficult. Recently India has increased its budgetary
support for the implementation of various laws on violence against women and it
becomes increasingly more important for the organization like Shakti Vahini to
work on governance specially related to women and children issuesThe National
Legal Research Desk (NLRD) has been instituted to strengthen the implementation
of the laws related to Women and Children in India. NLRD focuses on documenting
the recent changes in the law, collect and compile the Recent Landmark
Judgments of the Supreme Courts of India & the High Courts and ensure wide
scale dissemination of the same through the government and the non government
machinery. The NLRD will work with Law Enforcement Agencies, Police Academies,
Judicial Agencies, Government Agencies, Statutory Agencies, NGOs, Civil Society
and Mass Media on promoting Access to Justice for Women and Children. The NLRD
website is a knowledge Hub for compilation of all Laws, Judgements and Resource
materials on Violence against Women and Children in India. In the first phase
(2012) it will focus on the laws related to Human Trafficking, Domestic
Violence, Juvenile Justice, Rape Laws, PCPNDT Act , Honour Crimes and Victim
Compensation.
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