Centre to organise self-defence classes for women, adolescent girls

The Centre is working on introducing self defence training for women in shelter homes. At a meeting in Delhi, union minister for women and child development Smriti Irani said that the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) as well as the National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development will work on a plan to introduce safety training across various facilities that come under the ministry.

Irani was speaking at an event on safety and security of women organised by the ministry as part of its week-long activities in celebration of International Women’s Day. During the event, women officers from the Special Police Unit for Women and Children (SPUWAC) carried out a demonstration of self-defence moves that women can use in times of danger.

“If a woman is trained well, even in violent conditions she can fight for herself. We enable all One Stop Crisis (OSCs) centres across the country to carry out demonstrations and special interventions for safety training,” Irani said during the event.

The crisis centres, covered by the Sakhi scheme, provide women with police facilitation, medical aid, legal counselling, psycho-social counselling and temporary shelter to women affected by violence. The scheme, which has been operational since April 2015, has provided help to over 3 lakh women, the ministry said. Currently, there are 704 OSCs across the country, and the ministry plans to make 309 new centres operational by the end of the year.

Ministry officials said that they propose to start self-defence training for adolescent girls at childcare institutions first in batches of 30, and then train the women as well as ministry staff across all the crisis centres across the country. Women and staff at Swadhar Greh homes, and the adolescent girls who are beneficiaries of Anganwadi centres will then be trained.

NIPCCD officials said that adolescent girls in over 9589 childcare institutions and 6368 children homes across the country will be provided the training. There are 1,70,375 girl children who are in need of care and protection in childcare institutions across the country and over 1805 girl children in conflict with the law. A mapping of these institutions will be carried out and then adolescent girls will be given the training, officials said.

The safety-training modules for women and adolescent girls will be carried out in joint collaboration between BPR&D and NIPCCD. BPR&D will carry out these with the help of state and central police organisations, while NIPCCD will provide the logistical and financial support. A handbook of self-defence techniques will be prepared by BPR&D.

Currently, the ministry of education has self-defence classes for adolescent girls under the Samagra Shiksha scheme, where girls between the sixth to ninth standard in the residential Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas are given self-defence training. The centre provides schools Rs 3,000 per month for three months to these schools with adolescent girls for safety-training purposes.

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