A meeting of all stakeholders on women and child safety issues was organised on Thursday by the Criminal Investigation Department, Assam, at the Conference Hall of Assam Police Headquarters, Guwahati.
Senior officers from Police, Social Justice, Education, Health, Labour and Land Resources departments and officials from commissions, representatives of several educational institutes, representatives from TISS and NGOs working in the field of women and children’s issues were present in the meeting.
Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta, Director General of Police, reiterated the fact that Assam Police is determined and committed to fight crime against women and children.
He also stressed the need for a multidisciplinary approach in order to effectively combat and tackle this menace.
“The meeting has been organised with the objective of developing a mechanism of convergence among the stakeholders namely the police, various government departments, like the social welfare, education, labour etc. Health and other government organisations like state commission for women, Assam State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, NGOs educational institutes which need to work in close coordination for a synergistic approach to address the issues related to women and children safety,” he said.
Hemaprabha Barthakur, Chairperson, State Commission for Women, stressed the need for a multipronged approach and elaborated on the steps taken by the commission in recent times to combat this menace.
She appreciated the efforts of Assam Police in this regard and stated that all the stakeholders will have to work tirelessly to provide protection to women and children.
Earlier, in his welcome address AYV Krishna, Additional Director General of Police, CID, Assam, spoke in detail about the steps taken by Assam Police to deal with crimes against women and children.
He spoke about setting up of a division headed by a SP rank officer for Crime against Women and Children in CID headquarters for monitoring heinous crimes against women and children and setting up of Special Cells for Women at 11 districts in collaboration with Tata Institute of Social Sciences as a multi-agency approach with an aim to provide legal, psychological and counselling’s to women victims.
In this regard Government of Assam signed a MoU with TISS recently. Special Juvenile Police Units are now operational in all the districts headed by a DSP/ASP with a child welfare officer in each police station, women help desks started in 320 Police Stations, exclusive training programmes for more than 1330 police officers conducted by CID in the last two years, a Family Counselling Centre started at CID Headquarters, Sishu Mitra Resource Centre set up in collaboration with UNICEF and Anti Human Trafficking Units setup in all districts.
He also said that a total of 161 Human Trafficking cases were registered in the last one year, 123 Traffickers arrested and 279 victims including 110 children rescued.
On this occasion, a ‘Handbook for Investigating Officers of Crimes against Women and Children’, compiled by CID, Assam, was also launched by the dignitaries.
This book will act as a one-stop guide for all the investigating and supervisory officers and will help in improving the quality of investigation.
The meeting concluded with positive feedback from all the stakeholders to make
equal efforts and work in coordination for making positive changes in the approach towards dealing with issues related to women and children. (ANI)
