Hyderabad: The Bharosa-She teams office had 10-12 visitors every day in 2018 and over 100 visitors from NGOs, officials from other departments and delegates from other states visited the centres to understand its functioning.
A total of 3,220 domestic violence cases, 579 PoCSO cases and 138 rape cases were taken up by Bharosa.
The aim of these teams is to curb eve-teasing and harassment of women in public places, said Anjani Kumar, Police Commissioner.
“The Hyderabad SHE Teams have been conducting awareness programmes in various schools, which highlight the harassment against women and girls in public places and also in schools and colleges,” he said.
“As a part of the awareness programme, children and students were taught about child sexual abuse, how to identify it and how to report it to their parents, teachers and police,” said the official.
Since, the inception of SHE Teams in 2014, almost all schools and colleges in Hyderabad have been covered under awareness programmes regarding sexual abuse of children in schools, colleges. public transport and in private places.
SHE Teams have a daily routine of visiting railway stations, bus stations, market areas, shopping malls etc and they try to apprehend the eve teasers red handed.
A child friendly court was started in April, 2018 to try cases of sexual offences against minors under POCSO Act. “It has the facilities to make a child feel comfortable during the process of trial. Since its formation,14 cases referred to it by Bharosa have ended in conviction.
Bharosa, as part of its initiative to sensitize teachers on child sexual abuse, has started a series of workshops on August 18, 2018. As part of these workshops, the teachers are taught how to identify the abuse on children, based on their behaviour and how to handle them. They are also made aware of the important sections of the POCSO Act as well as good and bad touch. Out of Teachers of 600 different Govt. Schools, till now 400 teachers were undergone these workshops” concluded Mr. Kumar.
