We should have long graduated from talking about women's rights to women empowerment. While there is still time before we hit that milestone, the latest move by Vadodara Police is a step in the right direction.
Vadodara Police has set up a special centre under its SHE Team that will help fight crime against women and the elderly. A team of policemen will be trained in a way to not only help the victim file complaint against the perpetrator but will also extend counselling support.
Many studies have pointed out the urgent need of extending counselling to women victims. Not just in rape cases, but with all women-related crimes in general, from domestic violence to workplace harassment. The aim is to ensure a quick response to women's complaints and the intention is to build confidence among women in reporting these crimes. The team will be deployed to monitor especially those places which are known spots of eve-teasing.
Don't hesitate, just report
Additionally, the team will also be charged with helping out senior citizens in the city. In one of the interviews, city Police Commissioner Shamsher Singh stated that one of the key motives of this centre is to encourage women to approach the police, without any hesitation, if they face any crime. "This centre will focus on giving a conducive environment for the women to file a complaint or narrate their harrowing experiences."
After Singh went through last year's data, he found that close to 6,500 complaints were from women and pertained domestic violence, harassment and even sexual abuse and that is what prompted him to set up the team.
In addition to the centre, a technical data centre is also in the pipeline that will help keep a record of the cases. The record will track the action taken by the cops who were assigned to the cases and the strategies to prevent those incidents in future.
He further mentioned an incident where a man was booked under PASA after a woman approached the SHE team. "Investigations revealed that he was involved in a similar crime in the past."
He also recently tweeted an incident wherein, on February 5, the SHE team of Warasiya Police Station came across a 77-year-old person, living alone and struggling to arrange food. The SHE team, reportedly, arranged tiffin service for the old person free of cost, with the help of an NGO.
