Bengaluru: Life is never the same again for rape victims and rather than helping them, the police , hospitals and courts often add to their trauma with their lengthy and tortuous procedures.
As a solution, the government came up with the idea of setting up integrated centres that could provide all the help the rape victims needed under one roof and the first was supposed to be set up at Bowring Hospital.
But even with toddlers now being raped in the city, the government is no closer to setting up these centres. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had announced in his 2014 Budget that integrated centres for rape victims would be established across Karnataka and a pilot project would take off at Bowring followed by more such centres at KC GeneralHospital, Bangalore Medical College, NIMHANS and Jayadeva Hospital in the city. But so far no such centre has been set up at any of the hospitals concerned.
“The government is dilly dallying on this grave issue. Although we have the funds a Government Order(GO) needs to be passed to set up the centres," says women’s activist and founder of Stree Jagrati Samithi, Geetha Menon, who has been working for the past six months to get the special treatment units in place in hospitals with little success.
"No unit has been set up so far. They remain only on paper," deplores prominent advocate and former chairman of the state women’s commission, Pramila Nesargi, clearly unable to understand the government’s lack of urgency in the matter when rapes are continuing to make headlines in the city, and at least two children have become victims of the heinous crime in the last few months. What will it take to wake it up, ask angry women activists. Is the government listening?
