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Drive to reduce crime against women

By Our Staff Reporter

PANANCHERY (THRISSUR DIST.), MARCH 5. A unique project aimed at arresting the increasing number of crime against women, local level Jagratha Samithis and Family Empowerment Forums are being set up at Pananchery panchayat, 12 km from Thrissur city.

The State Women's Commission and the Swiss-aided Capacity Development for Decentralisation in Kerala (CAPDECK) are collaborating in the implementation of the project which has been launched by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) in close coordination with the panchayat.

The Commission chairperson, M. Kamalam, said that ever since its inception in 1997, the Commission had been issuing orders to constitute local level and district Jagratha Samithis. The Commission then realised that it would be humanly impossible to handle all the cases of attacks against women by a single State-level body. District-level bodies of the Commission were constituted with the District Collectors as its president. There were moves to constitute the local-level Jagratha Samithis even during the previous LDF regime. But most of them did not sustain.

The Commission is now trying to implement the project in six selected panchayats — Payyoli, Mukkam, Meenangadi, Madappur, Varappetti and Pananchery — as a pilot experiment with the assistance from the CAPDECK, Ms. Kamalam said. If these projects are found successful they would be implemented in other panchayats as well.

Uniqueness

The initiative at Pananchery had been launched six months back, before the Commission had planned to launch the pilot experiment. And its uniqueness is that it has adopted `a bottom-up approach.' The SEWA volunteers would create a social need for the Jagratha Samithis through a series of awareness campaigns, in collaboration with the elected representatives and officials of the panchayat.

About 15 workshops were conducted as part of the campaigns. A participatory survey was first conducted to assess the awareness on the domestic and social status of women, among women themselves. Initially there was resistance from men when the campaigns touched many forms of oppression of women, including in the job front, in subtle and concealed forms, said M.M. Gracy the coordinator of SEWA, said.

Forms of violence

It was after exchange of opinions among the members of both the sexes that the men started realising such subtle forms of violence against women. Now men in the panchayat happily partake in the programme, said the former panchayat president, Sakunthala Unnikrishnan, and the member, Savithri Sadanandan.

The campaign committee had so far received 28 complaints of attacks on women and they are already being acted upon. Another unique feature of the initiative is that Pananchery has become the first panchayat in the State to approve rules for the functioning of Jagratha Samithis, the panchayat president, M.K. Sivaraman, said.

Chandy to inaugurate

Mr. Sivaraman said that the Chief Minister Oommen Chandy would inaugurate the Jagratha Samithis in the panchayat on March 8. The campaign committee has been able to set up a full-fledged computerised office for the Jagratha Samithis in the panchayat.

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