NEW DELHI: Creating forums for sexual violence survivors would encourage them to become leaders and create awareness in their communities about their rights, and enable them to access legal aid, shows an evaluation report put forward by Jan Sahas — a platform working towards ending sexual violence.
“Different programmes are aimed towards the components of prevention, rehabilitation and reintegration in isolation. Jan Sahas has tried to combine these elements. The third-party evaluation shows the model is powerful. This model can be scaled up by government agencies and civil society organisations,” said Ashif Shaikh, founder, Jan Sahas.
Through the survivor-level interventions conducted by the platform, members reach out to other survivors and their families and provide counselling while encouraging and assisting them to report incidents of sexual abuse. Over 5,000 survivors are part of the survivor support network across Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Delhi and over 650 survivors have emerged as survivor leaders through this comprehensive model, it said.