Women Safety at peak, One Stop Centers gaining momentum

New Delhi, February 9: There is no age limit for violence and thus to take a stand and speak against it, an initiative called as One Step Centers are opened for girls and women to stop the ongoing sexual harassment, eve-teasing, misbehavior. 

 

This noble initiative of alloting One Stop Center has gained momentum and the officials have announced that they have allotted almost 170 One Stop Centers all over the country. Women and girls who face violence can enroll their complaints in these centers and the authorities would take undue action against the culprit. The main objective of the scheme is to give the women a proper support that have been affected by violence in private and public sectors.

The Ministry is implementing Scheme for setting up One Stop Centre since 1st April 2015 to support women affected by violence. The scheme aims to facilitate access to an integrated range of services including medical aid, police assistance, legal aid case management, psycho-social counselling, and temporary support services to women affected by violence. Under the scheme, it has been envisaged that One Stop Centre would be set up across the country in a phased manner. In the first phase, one Centre was sanctioned per State/UT. Further, 150 additional Centres are taken up in second phase during 2016-17. Recently, the Government of India has approved setting up 150 additional districts during the year 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20. So far, 170 One Stop Centres have become operational

As per the Section 375A, the State Government has to compensate the victims for the crimes continued against women and also notify the State Victim Compensation Scheme (VCS). In order to align with the uniformity of compensation, Central Victim Compensation Fund (CVCF) has been formulated, and that the States VCS align the same for having uniform compensation to the victims, so that the uniformity releases are made by the States to the women victims. Under the CVCF scheme, financial assistance of Rs. 200 Crores as one time grant has been released to all the States/UTs and the States and Union Territories release funds to the victims.