Annual Report - National Human Rights Commission

Rights of Women and Children
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
○
Child Development, for usage of the judicial officers dealing with cases of trafficking in
women and children. A Committee was also constituted under the chairmanship of Justice
(Smt.) Sujata V. Manohar, former focal point on Human Rights of Women, including
Trafficking, with a representative each from the Department of Women and Child
Development, Ministry of Home Affairs, National Commission for Women, UNICEF,
UNIFEM, Lawyers’ Collective and the Joint Women’s Programme to work out the
structure of the Handbook. As reported earlier this Committee had recommended that the
National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore be commissioned to
prepare the Handbook.
8.4 The main objective of the Handbook was to sensitize the judicial officers to the overall
issue of trafficking and to realize how women and children experience the process of law relating
to trafficking and the functioning of related support services so as to enable them to proactively
safeguard the rights of victimised women and children through sensitive interpretation of the
law. In order to achieve this objective, the Committee decided that the NLSIU should convene
State level consultations with judicial officers, public prosecutors, police and representatives of
NGOs as this would enable them to prepare the draft Handbook. It was also decided that
information be elicited from judicial officers through a mail questionnaire in order to assess their
overall understanding on issues related to trafficking. The States where the consultations were
decided to be convened were: Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Goa, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh,
Maharashtra, Orissa, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.
8.5 In the preceding annual report, it was also reported that State level consultations in all the
identified States were completed by the NLSIU in collaboration with the Commission, the
Department of Women and Child Development, Government of India and UNICEF. Based on
the interaction with all the stakeholders as well as data collected through the mail questionnaire
from judicial officers and the information obtained from custodial homes, both governmental
and non-governmental, the draft of the Handbook was prepared by NLSIU under the overall
guidance of the former Focal Point of the Commission.
8.6 During the year under report, a National Consultation was organised by the Department
of Women and Child Development in collaboration with the Commission and the UNICEF
at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi on 20-04-2004. The main objective of this consultation was
to pre-test the overall contents of the draft Handbook, which was discussed threadbare
among the participants comprising Registrar Generals/Registrars of the High Courts,
Judicial Officers, Directors of Judicial Academies and National Law Schools, senior
officials of the Commission, UNICEF, UNIFEM and the Department of Women and
Child Development, Government of India. The Members of the Committee constituted for
the purpose were also invited. Based on the deliberations and suggestions that were
put forth during the course of the National Consultation, suitable amendments were made
in the draft Handbook. The draft Handbook was subsequently approved by the Registrar
116
National Human Rights Commission Annual Report - 2004-2005
AR-Chapter-1-19-10-6-06.p65
136
7/17/06, 6:29 PM