On the occasion of National Girl Child Day today, the State Government will distribute panic buttons to girls and women in four districts of the State. The online portal She-Box for redressal of problems faced by women will also be launched on the same. The Minister of State for Women and Child Welfare, Rekha Arya talked to The Pioneer and other issues related to girls and women in the State.
She said that both the initiatives to be launched on Thursday will be very helpful in ensuring the protection of girls and women in the State. “On the occasion of National Girl Child Day we will be distributing panic buttons or rescue buttons specifically in four districts- Haridwar, Dehradun, Pauri and Tehri. Our team has selected 50 girls and women in each district who will be given these buttons which will then be practically tested for the next six months. If the trial of these panic buttons is found to be beneficial, we will provide these in the remaining districts at affordable price,” she said. The user of the panic button has to feed 10 mobile phone numbers of family members or contacts which will be added to the already stored numbers of the police and women’s helpline. In case of danger or emergency, pressing the panic button will send a message to all the stored contacts including the police and women’s helpline to ensure timely response and help.
Adding further she said, “Our second initiative is ‘She Box’ which will be inaugurated on the same day. She Box is an online portal which is meant to solve the problems of women. If any girl or woman from any part of the state is facing any kind of harassment she can register her complaint on the portal online. District Magistrates have been made the nodal officers of the portal and under their monitoring the complaints will be addressed and resolved. If any complaint remains pending then state team will work in the matter. Our aim will be to solve every type of problem within a time period of 90 days. The complainant can also see the progress of action on the complaint filed.”
When asked about the various problems regarding Nari Niketan in Dehradun, and issue of child labour Arya said, “Nari Niketan is a facility with officials inside and other offices nearby, so it is under everybody’s watch. Some issues like the shortage of the beds and other aspects have been brought to our notice. We are planning to give more beds in the wards in addition to which a new hall, reception and more toilets will also be built there for which the fund has been passed. Regarding child labourers, my directions are simple -- if any such case is found which should get registered then it should get registered and the rehabilitation has to be taken care of by officials concerned.”
Expressing her thoughts about the skill development programme she said, “We regularly work to connect women with the skill development programme. One of our initiatives was sanitary napkin units which were set up in Udham Singh Nagar, Tehri, Bageshwar and Nainital districts. These units were made to make women aware about sanitary napkins while also employing women in their production. However, due to some reasons, some of the units failed. Now we are trying to make all these units work again.”
Expressing her views on the rise in crime against women especially in the mountainous area she said, “I think the number of crimes have not changed in some years now though what has changed is that now women are vocal and empowered enough to report the crime. A girl of very young age is also aware to raise objection against the person who is guilty. The only message I want to give is that girls and women should keep on working and achieving success — the Government is always there for all of them.”