| Interventions |
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Women's Rights |
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Advocacy |
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From its inception CSJ has been working on women's rights in an effort to create a gender just society. CSJ has helped several organizations working on women’s rights issues to build their staff capacity to respond to the issues of women and violence legally. The bulk of the Centre’s work comes in the form of its many interventions. |
| CSJ’s Advocacy Efforts are: |
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Setting up of Family Courts in Gujarat |
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The Family Courts Act, which was passed in the year 1987 provided for the establishment of special courts to handle cases of women facing domestic violence. CSJ initiated a campaign to establish Family Courts in Gujarat. A Public Interest Litigation was filed and as a result the courts have been established in Ahmedabad. |
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Legal status of women in Gujarat |
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A study was undertaken in collaboration with the Commissioner on Women and Child to examine the attitudes of the justice delivery mechanism towards women and the extent to which pro-women legislations are actually implemented. The department to negotiate a gender sensitization programme with the police used the CSJ report to further its efforts. |
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Review of laws related to women |
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Subsequent to the above study, the department asked CSJ to study the laws related to women and to recommend changes. An exhaustive review of the relevant laws and recommendations submitted to the Government was completed by the Centre. Subsequently, CSJ helped the department route the recommendations through the various departments. Despite that, very little movement took place on the matter. CSJ was invited by the law minister to do a consultative process involving various organizations to look at the laws related to women. After initial discussions, nothing happened on the issue. Subsequently, CSJ was invited to be on the committee on the gender policy which was being formulated by the State. CSJ again submitted a report after a consultative process with various people on the required legislative changes. A detailed note on CSJ’s contribution is attached for reference. |
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Some of the recommendations which have been accepted are as follows: |
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Our recommendation on equal rights on parental recommendations has been accepted. The government has passed a GR stating that the mother’s name must be written along with the child’s name on the certificate instead of the father’s name. Also, mother’s or father’s name can be written in all other forms. |
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Our recommendation on women in governance has been accepted. The government stated that all statutory bodies must have women representatives on their board |
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Our recommendation on removal of the upper limit of Rs. 500/- as maintenance laws has been accepted and now courts are free to award any amount which it considers fit in a given situation. |
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The government has declared its intent to establish a State Commission on Women. |
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We got a Gazetted Resolution which clearly mentions that all allotments of houses /money being made by the government have to be in the joint name of the husband and the wife. |
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Police training |
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Police Training for Gender Sensitization |
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A study sponsored by the commissioner on women and children revealed that a large percentage of the police force is unaware of the Dowry Prohibition Act. Additionally, 498-A cases were compromised by the police. The Police Training Academy at Karai invited CSJ to do a gender sensitisation programme for the police. CSJ, in turn, conducted a training programme for trainers in order to ensure the continuous inclusion of a gender perspective. A report of the workshop is attached for reference. A system was worked out where a long-term accompaniment process was planned. How ever, it could not continue due to extraneous factors. |
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The objectives of the training are to: |
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Develop the primary understanding of Training and Adult Education |
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Develop a primary understanding of gender. |
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Practice basic skills of training. |
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Develop a primary understanding of alternate legal education. |
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Together develop a design for further intervention. |
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Training Characteristics |
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Introduction of Objectives |
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Social Construct |
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Practice Session |
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Legal services |
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On average, CSJ caters to almost 642 women in distress every year. Details of the number of women that have been supported by CSJ are below: |
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Issue based litigation/test cases |
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The following issue based litigations have been undertaken by the C.S.J.:- |
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Status of women sarpanches in Panchayat: Despite the fact that the law provides for 33% reservation for women in panchayats, the number of sarpanches who are active are very few. The practice is that any woman sarpanch who becomes active is faced with no confidence motion against her. A survey was carried out by the Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan and based on the same a Public interest litigation was filed. The court did not entertain the matter on technical grounds |
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Transfer of cases to women’s place of residence: We came across several cases where women left their matrimonial homes and returned to their fathers’ house but their cases were going on in the court situated in their husbands’ place of residence. This causes great hardship to women. We have asked for and actually got cases transferred to the woman’s place of residence |
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Removal of upper limit of maintenance: As a strategy, we started making a demand for more than Rs.500/- as maintenance in lower courts knowing fully well that the court will reject the demand. One case where we had a rejection order was undertaken by the C.S.J. at the High Court to challenge the validity of the upper limit of the maintenance amount in the Criminal Procedure Code. The court, while fully agreeing with us in principle expressed its inability to give a favourable order. |
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In one case in Modasa, the team managed to get a ten-year conviction in the case of a child rape. They also demanded and got a compensation of Rs.25,000/- which is unprecedented in Gujarat. |
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Strengthening community based mechanisms for dispute resolution |
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The Dang unit is very actively working on activating the local panchas. Some of the shifts that have taken place are as follows: |
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Earlier, only men sat as panchas. Now women are also given a place in the panch system |
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In case of broken marriages, the woman had to pay the groom irrespective of whose fault it was. Now this practice has stopped. |
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Earlier, the bride had to go to the groom’s village for negotiation. Now the negotiation takes place at the bride’s house or at a common place. |
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Sexual Harassment in the Workplace |
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CSJ developed a manual based on sexual guidelines of the Supreme Court on harassment in the workplace. In the next stage, efforts will be undertaken to ensure implementation of the same. |
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Survey on Domestic Violence |
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After the implementation of the Domestic Violence Act, 2005, CSJ conducted a survey of domestic violence cases in each of the districts the Centre operates in. |
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The objectives of the survey were to: |
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Study the gap between the required implementation mechanism and the available systems. |
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Conduct an institutional analysis of the relevant stakeholders (Competency, quality and quantitative capacity) to handle DVA. |
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Study the mindset of the implementing machinery regarding DVA. |
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Study the steps taken by the State for the implementation of DVA. |
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