Smt. Meera Barooah, Chairperson, ASCW giving the welcome address appreciated NCW’s role in sponsoring legal awareness workshops in the State of Assam, stressing that 27 more legal awareness workshops needed to be conducted in the different districts. Women living in very remote areas will benefit from these legal awareness programmes and they would become aware of their legal rights as per the Constitution of India and come forward to fight against injustice. 

Present during the discussion was Smt. Runumi Gogoi, Vice Chairperson, ASCW; Members Smt.Bokul Ghose, Smt. Hironmoni Phukan, Dr.(Smt.) Sudha Srivastava, Smt.Balika Lahon Pegu, Dr.(Smt.) Monalisha Choudhury, Smt. Rajashri Baruah,and Smt. Monidipa Borkotoki, Member Secretary, ASCW. 

Dr Charu WaliKhanna lauded the efforts of the State Commission, especially in the field of social and economic empowerment of the women of the State. She emphasized that the rising trend of violence against women was alarming and called for collective efforts to tackle the same. Speaking on the problem of atrocities against women, notably branding as ‘witch’, she said this social evil had little to do with superstition and was more often a ploy to grab land of the poor and uneducated women. If a woman was a widow she was more vulnerable since her matrimonial family wanted to deprive her of her land rights. 

The ASCW also informed Dr Charu WaliKhanna that the problem of witch hunting had been on the increase and the State Commission was of the opinion that literacy and health awareness can play a vital role in fighting this evil practice. Members of the ASCW visited places where witch-hunting occurs and create awareness to taken necessary steps against such type of evil practices. The State Commission feels that education and proper health facilities can play an important role to curb the problem of witch hunting as people go to Bez or quacks for their treatment instead of going to Hospitals. The ASCW proposes to move throughout the State of Assam to create awareness against this social evil in co-ordination with District Administration. It was informed that a draft bill on prevention of “Witch Hunting” was handed over to Hon’ble Chief Minister to pass it as a Legislation. 

The State Commission expressed concern on rising incidents of Trafficking of Women from the North Eastern States specially Assam for Commercial and Sexual exploitation. The Commission has been relentlessly working the create awareness against trafficking with the help of leading NGOs. Attention was also drawn on rising incident of domestic Violence and role of ASCW in monitoring activities of the Protection Officer and Service Providers and sensitizing of people about the Domestic Violence Act, 2005.

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