Hyderabad: Telangana’s ‘One-stop crisis centre for women'is not living up to its purpose fully. Telangana was the first state to launch a 'One-Stop Crisis Centre' i.e. a Nirbhaya centre for women in distress in 2015, at the Kondapur Area Hospital. An average of fifty victims of rape, dowry harassment and domestic abuse cases were registered.
But the centre lacked basic facilities such as a landline connection, transportation service from rural parts of the district, medical tests for rape victims and the facility for storage of evidence of rape victims.
Owing to all the difficulties and lack of facilities, the centre was proposed to be shifted to a hospital with better facilities. Finally, after much delay, it was shifted to Vanasthalipuram Area Hospital a month ago.
Unfortunately for the women it proposes to help, the centre continues to flounder, despite the shift. There are several problems facing the centre, first amongst them being communication. The centre was supposed to ensure police service for rape victims at the centre so that the victims could avoid going to the police station to file a First Information Report (FIR).
But S. Murali Krishna, the inspector of police of Vanasthalipuram was unaware of the shift. When asked, he said, “I do not have any information regarding the relocation of the Nirbhaya centre and therefore haven't taken any cases there myself.”
Strangely enough, the hospital authorities have little clue about the centre in its premises. The superintendent of Vanasthalipuram Area Hospital, Dr Nagavardhan Rao claimed that the hospital was just providing facilities for the Nirbhaya centre but they weren't responsible for it and no official record of the patients were maintained.
Meanwhile, we spoke to a woman Swati J (name changed) who said, “I had tried contacting the hospital through the landline number listed online but the office said that they had no details of the Nirbhaya centre and couldn't redirect me. I asked for doctors who treated patients at the centre but I was informed that no doctors were available. As the last resort, I tried calling the helpline number 181 which was listed for the One Stop Crisis Centre but it was a regular women's helpline number that could not redirect me to Nirbhaya centre. My case was not that severe but how would a woman in emergency reach the centre?” How indeed.
