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Mohini Giri rues government apathy to atrocities on women

National Commission for Women chairperson V Mohini Giri has regretted that all successive governments at the Centre in the past had shown lukewarm response towards women's problem, particularly atrocities perpetrated on them.

Criticising the government for its apathetic attitude, Dr Giri told the media that all the 24 amendments suggested in the laws pertaining to the atrocities on women and the 250 recommendations of the Commission were gathering dust over the years.

The NCW chairperson said the Commission had approached all three prime ministers in the past, starting from P V Narasimha Rao to I K Gujral for consideration of its recommendations. But barring a few recommendations, the Central government had turned a deaf ear to all of them, she said, and added that if the Centre was not serious about the growing atrocities on women there was no need for setting up the Commission.

She said the Commission has recommended to the Centre to conduct 'jail adalat ' on the line of Lok Adalat for over 6000 women prisoners languishing in various jails of the country. Blaming the judiciary and the government for such a sorry state of affairs, Dr Giri said the law stipulated that women prisoners could not be confined inside a jail for more than a year if their cases were not taken up by the court.

She hoped that the Centre would accept this suggestion for holding 'jail adalat' to clear up the pending cases against women prisoners. The Commission would soon take up the matter with the home ministry and if the government agreed, the first 'jail adalat ' would be held in Tihar jail where over 3000 women prisoners were being kept for years together, she added.

Dr Giri, whose term expires this month, said the NCW at the Centre and the women commissions at the state level should be free from political and bureaucratic interference.

"No political figure should be taken either into the National Commission for Women or the state commission for women to ensure freedom of the panels," she added.

She said the NCW, realising that the National Commission for Women Act was inadequate to deal with the present situation, had recommended some amendments to strengthen the act.

Dr Giri said she would soon meet Union Minister Murli Manohar Joshi and apprise him of the necessity for bringing amendments in the NCWA so that there would be no further dilution of the Act.

The Commission, she said, would also demand setting up women's rights commissioners at the state level, who would be given investigative powers in all cases relating to the atrocities on women.

The NCW chairperson said the Commission had conducted legal literacy camps and ' parivarik mahila lok adalat ' all over the country to bring awareness among the women of their rights and speedy disposal of their cases.

She said so far the Commission had conducted legal literacy camps in 80 colleges in the country, covering over 300,000 women and organised 180 parivarik mahila lok adalats.

Dr Giri lamented that child prostitution had reached an alarming proportions in the country, with over 800,000 children involved in the profession, a majority of them (about 40,000) reported to be from Maharashtra.

The NCW chairperson said the commission had suggested to the Centre to set up separate employment exchanges for women in all states and make the registration of women leaving the state for any sort of job compulsory. This would prevent child prostitution to a great extent, she added.

Dr Giri said the NCW had also formulated a moral code of conduct for all those universities where both the sex were studying. So far only three universities -- Madras, Bangalore and Rajasthan -- had accepted the code of conduct by setting up grievance cells to look into atrocities on women in the university.

Meanwhile, the Orissa assembly witnessed a furore over the remarks of Dr Giri on the conduct of the inmates of a working women's hostel in the state.

The issue figured during zero hour when members from both the opposition and treasury benches described her statement as ''shameless'' and demanded a probe into it.

Dr Giri, who came to Bhubaneswar to address two workshops organised by the state women's commission, had told the media that on inquiry she had found that at least 50 per cent of the inmates of a working women's hostel in Orissa were indulging in prostitution.

She further said she had visited the hostel on receiving complaints in the past, and talked to the inmates to assess the veracity of the allegations.

Dr Giri said she was shocked when some of the inmates told her that they were quite grown up and had the right to do whatever they felt. She then suggested that the hostel authorities adopt strict disciplinary measures to restrict the movement of the boarders at night.

Janata Dal leader in the house Nurshingha Mishra first raised the issue, stating that the statement of the NCW chairperson was a slur on the government.

Biju Janata Dal member Suryanarayan Patra described the remark as an insult to the people of the state. BJP leader in the house Biswa Bhusan Harichandan, while dubbing the statement as "reckless", demanded an apology from Dr Giri. He also urged that the house pass a resolution condemning the statement.

Minister of State for Excise Suresh Kumar Routray went one step further by demanding the arrest of Dr Mohini Giri for making such a 'shameless' statement. His party colleague Ganeswur Behera also described the incident as 'most unfortunate' and demanded that the matter be probed.

Raising the issue, leader of opposition in the house Ram Krushna Pattnaik (Biju Janata Dal) said Dr Giri had made a very serious statement. "Such an irresponsible remark," he said, should not have come from such a responsible person.

Pattnaik further said an all-party committee should be set up to look into the allegations made by Dr Giri.

The leader of opposition demanded that criminal proceedings be initiated against Dr Giri if her statement proved wrong.

Amar Satpathy (BJD) also demanded an independent probe into the matter, while his party colleague, Debi Prasad Mishra, and Janata Dal member Prafulla Ghadei wanted Chief Minister J B Patnaik to make a statement.

Sensing the mood of the opposition and treasury benches, Speaker Chintamani Dyan Samantra asked the chief minister to make a statement on the issue.

Independent member Bal Gopal Mishra was the only one who said Dr Giri had not made an irresponsible comment and demanded that a Supreme Court judge be asked to probe the matter.

Later, the furore subsided when the chief minister assured the house that he would inquire into the matter and inform the house. Patnaik, however, made it clear that Dr Giri met him but did not mention anything about the conduct of the inmates of the hostel.

UNI

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