One Stop Centre Scheme

• 20 Jul 2019

One stop centre is a centrally sponsored scheme of Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD), for addressing the problem of violence against women.

• It is a subscheme of umbrella scheme for National Mission for Empowerment of Women including Indira Gandhi Mattritav Sahyaog Yojana.
• One stop centre, will be established across the country to provide integrated support and assistance under one roof to women affected by violence, both in private and public spaces.
• Funding: The scheme is funded through Nirbhaya Fund and the central government provides 100% financial assistance to the state governments /Union Territories administrations.
• Auditing: Audit will be done as per Comptroller & Auditor General of India norms and social audit will also be undertaken by civil society groups.
• Services: One stop centres will be integrated with women helplines to provide following services:
  
  • Emergency response and rescue services.
  • Medical assistance.
  • Assistance to women in lodging the FIR.
  • Psycho- social support and counselling.
  • Legal aid and counselling.
  • Shelter
  • Video conferencing facility.

Background

• ‘Nirbhaya Fund’ was established for women safety pertaining to the strategic areas of prevention, protection and rehabilitation.
• The 12^th Plan Working Group on Women’s Agency and Empowerment had recommended setting up of one stop crisis centres.
• Usha Mehra Commission, had recommended for the establishment of a “one-stop centre” to help victims of sexual assault and ensure speedy punishment to culprits.

Nirbhaya Fund

• The Nirbhaya Fund Framework provides for a non-lapsable corpus fund for safety and security of women.
• It is administered by the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) of the Ministry of Finance (MoF) of the Government of India.
• It can be utilized for projects and initiatives related to women safety.

Need

• Gender Based Violence (GBV) is a global health, human rights and development issue that transcends geography, class, culture, age, race and religion to affect every community and country in every corner of the world.
• In India, gender based violence has many manifestations:
  
  • Like domestic and sexual violence including rape.
  • Harmful practices such as, dowry, honour killings, acid attacks, witch-hunting, sexual harassment, child sexual abuse, trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation, child marriage, sex selective abortion, sati etc.
• India is also grappling with violence due to inequities in social life more particularly in times of displacement and communal incidents.