Women Safety Division in Ministry of Home Affairs
New Delhi- Ministry of Home Affairs, MHA has created a new Division to address issues of women safety comprehensively. This Division would deal with all aspects of women safety in coordination with relevant Ministries/Departments and State Governments.
Punya Salila Srivastava, AGMUT Cadre officer of 1993 batch has been posted as Joint Secretary to head this Division.The new Division will deal with the following subjects:‑
- Crimes against women, SCs&STs.
- Crimes against children, elderly persons.
- Anti-trafficking Cell.
- Matters relating to Prison legislation and prison Reforms.
- All schemes under NIRBHAYA fund.
- Crime and Criminal Tracking & Network System (CCTNS)
- National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)
In order to address offences against women particularly rape in a holistic and time bound manner, the Division would focus to enhance capacity of the existing administrative, investigative, prosecution and judicial machinery, along with appropriate measures for rehabilitation of victims and bringing attitudinal changes in society.
It was considered to create a National Mission for the safety of women, with participation of stakeholder Ministries/Departments, who would undertake specified actions in a time bound manner. These included setting up of Special Fast Track Courts (FTCs), strengthening of forensic set up and building up of National Registry of Sexual offenders, appointing additional Public Prosecutors, and providing appropriate medical and rehabilitation facilities to victims. Issues like sensitization of children through appropriate changes in school curriculum, a media campaign for raising awareness, checking proliferation of pornography materials and online contents etc. will also be addressed.
The National Mission for Safety of Women would result in following:
- For giving a credible response to emerging situation of crimes against women, especially minor girls
- Focus on time bound implementation of measures with tangible impact on women safety
- Improved coordination by Stakeholder Departments; Justice, MHA, WCD,
School Education, Health, Deity, Legal Affairs, Information & Broadcasting
• Improved Monitoring at Mission level of the time bound prosecution and
investigation in cases of rape and other matters related to women safety
The new Division in MHA will oversee the implementation of the above measures in a focussed way.
