NEW DELHI: Nearly 55 per cent of complainants from across the country who reached out to the National Commission for Women (NCW) seeking its intervention in various matters, belonged to Uttar Pradesh.
These details have come out through the commission’s annual report for 2017-18 that has just been compiled.
The complaints by women or their relatives ranged from right to live with dignity — that includes domestic violence, cruelty and harassment — to police apathy to sexual harassment at workplaces.
Interestingly, 403 women from various parts of India who were being forced to marry against their choice also reached out to the women’s rights panel seeking its assistance.No women from Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram complained to the Commission on any issue.
In all, the NCW received 15,381 complaints or cases falling within its mandate in the year. The largest number of complaints were related to the right to live with dignity, dowry harassment or cruelty towards married women and police apathy. The annual report, however did not elaborate on how many of the cases were actually resolved by the national commission.
Its chairperson Rekha Sharma, however said in the report that the “Commission has been able to address a large number of such complaints... Field visits and inquiries were also conducted by the Commission to investigate specific cases of discrimination and atrocities against women.”
The NCW at present registers complaints in 19 categories which include violence against women, sex selective abortion, indecent representation of women, trafficking, stalking, cyber crimes, polygamy and gender discrimination among others.
The report said that the commission also funded 29 research studies during the year 2017-18 on issues relevant to women.
The NCW’s NRI cell, which registers cases related to Non- Resident Indian Marriage related issues, received a total of 512 cases in 2017-18, the highest (67) of which were from Punjab. These complaints pertained to desertion, domestic violence and dowry harassment by husband and in-laws, ex- parte decision, by foreign court on divorce and child custody and demands for maintenance.
