In marathon outreach, NCW plans to hold week-long public hearings covering 500 districts

Through this nationwide effort, the commission aims to address and resolve nearly 15,000 complaints registered with the National Commission for Women and state commissions in these districts, including door-to-door grievances and registered cases, thereby providing timely support to women and strengthening institutional response mechanisms.The campaign is an extension of the National Commission’s flagship outreach program ‘NCW Aapke Dwar’, which saw 100 public hearings held across states last year to ensure speedy resolution of complaints registered with the NCW in these districts and for new cases to be taken up on the spot.Announcing the news ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8 every year, NCW president Vijaya Rahatkar said she would lead ‘jansunwais’ in the five states that currently do not have a state committee president. These states include Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Telangana.Rahatkar will chair a hearing in Jaipur on March 9 to launch the campaign. She will next visit Vadodara on March 10, followed by Bhopal on March 11, Medchal-Malkajgiri on March 12, Deoghar on March 13 and Dumka on March 14.Rahatkar said the chairperson and member posts in Delhi were also vacant but districts here were not included in this week’s 500 districts as the NCW, which is headquartered in the national capital, held a week-long public hearing in Delhi last year and dealt with around 2,000 complaints.Meanwhile, Rahatkar said she has written to the chief secretaries of all five states to form state committees at the earliest.The head of the NCW emphasized that based on experience collected from 100 public hearings held last year, a large number of cases were domestic disputes including domestic violence.It’s no secret that many women continue to suffer at home, and data trends over the years reveal this. Domestic violence and dowry harassment alone accounted for more than 39 per cent (10,846) of the more than 27,000 complaints of various crimes against women across the country as of December 31 of all complaints received by the commission’s complaints department last year.Rahatkar said the 500 districts were selected based on factors such as the number of complaints received and the need to reach remote and hilly areas.From jan sunwais in 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh to Manipur, despite the challenging situation in the state, five public hearings were held on the initiative, reflecting strong participation of state women commissions – The National Commission for Women will next week take the redressal system to the grassroots in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Tripura and Nagaland.