PUNE: A Women Vigilance Committee has been set up by the Women and Child Development Department (WCD), Pune district after there was a steep rise in the number of Domestic Violence (DV) cases in the district.
The committee aims to provide relief and help to women in distress in rural areas of Pune.
A notice issued by the department stated that within one month of the nationwide lockdown, several cases of domestic violence in rural areas came into light.
“Taking a note of it, the department has deployed a ‘Mahila Daskhata Samiti’ in rural areas of the district,” Pune district’s Chief Executive Officer Ayush Prasad said.
The committee will consist of the gram panchayat women candidate, Anganwadi sevika, Mahila bachat gat member, senior gram panchayat women among others.
The department has stated that if the committee receives any complaint or comes across any domestic violence incident, the members will initially counsel the family members. They have been further instructed to put the male accused in institutional quarantine if there was no improvement in the situation even after the counselling has been done.
The committee members can take police supervision in this task.
Apart from this, the committee members have been instructed to ensure that there is a proper supply of foodgrains in the villages. They also have to ensure that pregnant women, nursing mothers and children in the age group of six months to six years have been receiving all the benefits assigned under relevant schemes.
NATIONWIDE SCENARIO
On the National front, the National Commission for Women (NCW) has received 587 complaints from March 23 to April 16, out of which 239 are related to domestic violence.
According to data shared by the NCW, 123 cases of domestic violence were received between February 27 and March 22. In the last 25 days, the commission received 239 more such complaints.
NCW Chairperson Rekha Sharma earlier said that the high number could be attributed to the lockdown imposed due to the coronavirus outbreak which has locked the abuser and the victim together.
UN CHIEF CONDEMNS
When there was a surge in cases of domestic violence across the world, UN Secretary-General António Guterres had said that forced lockdowns and movement restrictions also meant that women suffering gender-based violence are now trapped at home with their abusers at a time when support services are disrupted or inaccessible.