AS-WOMEN CENTRE


PTI | Hailakandi | Updated: 12-01-2019 21:24 IST | Created: 12-01-2019 21:24 IST
AS-WOMEN CENTRE
  • Country:
  • India

A centre was opened

in this central Assam town on Saturday to provide shelter and

support services to survivors of rape and other forms of

violence against women and girls.

The one stop centre (OSC) for those women, was

set up by the Hailakandi district administration and the

social welfare department in collaboration with an NGO.

The OSC would be a place where integrated services

police assistance, legal aid, medical and counselling services

would be made available to the women victims of violence,

Additional Deputy Commissioner Amalendu Roy said at the

launching of the centre.

A toll free help number 181 is being made available to

women in distress, Roy said.

The OSC could fill a critical need for support

services for survivors of rape and other forms of violence

against women and girls, said Kabir Ahmed, secretary of

Wodwichee, the NGO.

"It can also serve as an educational resource for

healthcare workers, police, lawyers, and judges," he added.

The OSCs were prioritised under the Nirbhaya Fund set

up by the central government in 2013, after public protests

following the gangrape and murder of a young woman in New

Delhi in 2012, and long-held demands by women's rights groups,

official sources said.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development formulated

a centrally sponsored scheme for setting up OSCs in order to

fight the issues related to gender-based violence, the sources

said.

The scheme was implemented on April 1, 2015 and is

popularly known as Sakhi. Around 234 such OSCs were

established across the country, they said.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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