Campaigns and Specific Areas of Intervention

Another central part of the work of Vimochana has been the many public campaigns we have initiated that have not only helped to focus public and state attention on issues that need definitive changes in public perception and policy but also been responsible for defining the public face of Vimochana. For we are known today as an organisation that fearlessly and without compromising, mobilises public conscience and consciousness on issues crucial to the human rights of the vulnerable and marginalised. Apart from campaigns we have also initiated support work with specific groups of vulnerable women like the women in prostitution and the transgendered community. Our ongoing campaigns and current specific areas of intervention include the following:

(a) Campaign on Dowry Violence and Unnatural Deaths of Women in Marriage

Initiated in 1997, this campaign grew out of the deeply felt need to study the horrifying reality of increasing deaths of women within a few months/years of marriage due to murder by the husband and/or in laws or suicide due to intolerable harassment. The study led to a sustained campaign for changes not only in the attitudes of society but also in the police procedures like inquest, recording dying declarations, methods of investigation as also trial procedures. As on offshoot of the campaign we now have a permanent desk in the government run Victoria Hospital Burns ward that admits an average of atleast three women daily who are victims of domestic violence. To stop thisescalating violence, we have also initiated women’s support groups within those urban communities as in J.J. Nagar and Ulsoor where a large number of the unnatural deaths of women were reported.

In 1997, responding to the anger and sorrow of the many families coming to us after the deaths of their daughters, that were usually, if not always, related to dowry demands and harassment, asking us to intervene and facilitate the process of justice - we began to feel the need to follow up each and every reported death of young women. Towards not only finding the truth behind these deaths, but also to find out at every stage, the legal lacunae through which the murderers are able to get away with the crime, we initiated a study that evolved into a Campaign on Dowry Violence and the Unnatural Deaths of Women in Marriage.

This initiative was conceptualised at three basic levels:

a. Collection of Data: Documenting evidence and all relevant information through personal investigations and interviews with the members of the family of the deceased girl/woman. 

b. Campaign for Changes: To identify at the ground level, the cogs that actually hinder the delivery of justice and simultaneously campaign for necessary changes, both in social institutions and attitudes.

c. Documentation: Based on the collection of data, analyse the underlying trends and patterns of dowry in the present context, vis-à-vis the increasing violence associated with its practice --towards making a documentary film and bringing out a publication.

Our basic study revealed that in one year, in 1997, over 714 unnatural deaths of married women in the ages of 18 to 40 years occurred in the city of Bangalore alone. The deaths were classified as murders (outright knifing or by burning), abetted suicides (burning or hanging) or kitchen accidents such as stove bursts and cooking accidents. Of these and according to the police records, 260 were suicides, 24 murders and 430 were accidental deaths. The maximum deaths were by burning and stood at 455, while 119 died by hanging. We tried to follow up each case, by meeting and writing to the parents, right from investigation up to the stage of prosecution. It was while we were in the process of collating this data that we initiated the campaign that became in fact, the crucial public expression of the study.

Our Interventions

The Campaign that has been successful in making deep intrusions into public consciousness and has also been effective in making interventions in the running of state machinery and institutions like those related to law and order and justice revolves around three basic sets of activities:

· Drawing together a core community of parents who have been murdered or driven to suicide because of family harassment.
· Campaigns/ lobbying with Government services and agencies, including the police and judiciary, the legislature, the bureaucracy and the health delivery systems, to make them more accountable to those in need of justice.
· Extending community support structures through area level meetings and forming neighborhood committees.

Our interventions and programmes have included public hearings and Truth Commissions in the districts of Karnataka and in Bangalore, with the bureaucracy, in the State legislature and with the National Women’s Commission; demonstrations in front of the COD offices that is entrusted with the responsibility of conducting the investigations; demonstrations and lobbying with the Health Ministry to draw attention to the criminal neglect and corruption in the only Government Hospital (Victoria Hospital) that responds to the majority of the cases of women being burnt. As a result of this ongoing campaign, following are some of the concrete changes we have been able to affect so far, particularly in the State institutions:

· The police reopened and reviewed all the cases registered as unnatural deaths in 1997 beginning with recording fresh statements from the parents.
· A Helpline was set up in the office of the Police Commissioner, a 24 hour emergency service that would respond to calls for help from women in distress.
· The police accepted to open up the investigation to the public wherein volunteers from the different localities will be called upon to be part of the investigation.
· All our recommendations to the State Government during the public hearing we held in the State Assembly were accepted in toto into a gazetted notification as directions for investigations and action in cases of deaths of young married women.
· Two Tahsildars were appointed to conduct mazhars especially in all cases of unnatural deaths of married women within 10 years, particularly in Bangalore city.
· Total reconstruction of the Burns Ward in the government run Victoria Hospital to provide cleaner and more hygienic treatment.
· Formation of a Burns Ward Development Committee which includes representatives of the public, bureaucracy and members of Vimochana that will monitor and evaluate the improvements to be affected in the wards. Two members of Vimochana now sit within the ward on a permanent basis to monitor the functioning of the ward and the police investigations
· A round-the-clock emergency service in the hospital

Follow up of cases

While these have been the gains along the course of the Campaign, we continue following up cases of all the unnatural deaths of married women between the ages of 18 to 50, be they murders, suicides, stove-bursts or cooking accidents. This includes collecting data of deaths of women registered with the police from CCRB (Central Crime Records Bureau) and following up with the concerned police stations and the Forensic section on their investigations to ensure that there is no negligence or corruption in the investigation procedures, help in the filing cases, reframing charges whenever necessary under the relevant sections of the IPC, initiate arrest procedures, recovery of property of the girl etc. Following this we work with the public prosecutor, to ensure justice when the cases of deaths of women in personal violence cases come before the concerned courts. Apart from this we also follow up with personal interviews of parents and profile each case to ensure that the nuances of each case are recorded for a more comprehensive study that we propose to publish.

Continuing to act as a watchdog on the work of police and revenue officials in the handling of cases of women’s deaths and of violence against women, in case of manipulations, we expose such irregularities through public protests and demonstrations.

Women’s support groups in communities

We have initiated women’s support groups and neighborhood committees in the two areas of the city where our study and investigations revealed the highest incidence of deaths of women in marriage murders. These include J.J. Nagar and Ulsoor. These committees that include volunteers and activists from Vimochana respond to women in distress, are vigilant to personal violence in their neighbourhood, hold demonstrations, workshops and liaison with the police station and with other voluntary organisations in the area. As a result of this intervention we have found that over the past year the number of deaths of women have come down, particularly in Ulsoor.

Working in the Victoria Hospital Burns Ward 

We continue with our work in Victoria Hospital through the two social workers in the burns ward for we feel that their presence has not only facilitated a quicker and bribe free administration of medical treatment but also creating an atmosphere where the victim is able to make a dying declaration without fear. Such a monitoring we feel, in the long run, ensures an ethical medical system. This work has been helped due to a lot of public and media attention on this specific aspect of our work – locally, nationally and internationally. BBC, Oprah Winfrey and other national T.V networks have done programmes that have brought us much support for this programme.

Apart from intervening in the hospital in terms of monitoring medical services, the recording of dying declarations and survivor statements by the police we have formed a Survivors Group to follow up on the support to those women who leave the hospital with scars that are more than physical. Their acceptance and reintegration into their families and society is a long and painful process, for many times they face extreme rejection because of their disfigurement and the history of violence. Towards this we have started a consultancy for employment avenues for the survivors, finding sponsors and scholarships for education of their children and for their continued medical treatment, including organising blood donation camps where needed. As part of this we have begun work with other agencies such as Sumanahalli Ashram (which now works for rehabilitation and employment of leprosy patients) to initiate trainings in activities that will be suitable for the women survivors and will help them to sustain themselves and their children. We also continue our work of negotiating with the families of the survivors for supporting their growth.

Sensitisation Programmes

We continue the dialogue and training programmes initiated with the police and prosecution departments, tahsildars, lawyers, jurists, doctors, forensic experts etc with the purpose of not only tackling attitudes that are preventing cases from being investigated fairly but of bringing in the recent and radical trends in judicial and medical thinking that will impress upon the various departments the need to constantly improve their techniques and procedures. This also involves bringing in experts and resource persons from different fields and from different parts of the country to ensure fresh thinking and debate. As part of these trainings we focus particularly on spelling out in detail the implications of the gazette notification by the State Government that made mandatory our recommendations with regard to procedures for investigations and action in cases of deaths of young married women. These programmes are aimed at reducing the delays and discrepancies in implementing the rules and laws in legal procedures due to a play of patriarchal attitudes towards women or money/influence of the accused or the low status of women in society which puts women’s lives on a lower scale and hence not important enough for serious attention.

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