Several steps taken by Government to promote safety, security and empowerment of women

Several steps taken by Government to promote safety, security and empowerment of women

‘Police’ and ‘Public Order’ are State subjects under the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution of India and the responsibility to maintain law and order, protection of life and property of the citizens including investigation and prosecution of crime against women rests with the respective State Governments; they are competent to deal with such crimes. However, the Government gives highest priority to safety and security of women and children and has taken several initiatives in this regard.

As per the data reported by NCRB, which is available upto the year 2022 at its website https://ncrb.gov.in/en/crime-india, the number of crimes against women in 2021 and 2022 were 428278 and 445256 respectively. Increased reporting of crime may be attributable to the increased level of awareness among citizens due to various measures taken by government in the last few years including the operationalisation of helplines such as Women Helpline -181 and Emergency Response Support System (ERSS-112), concept of Zero-FIR, e-FIR and provision of institutional support to the survivors.

To promote women’s empowerment and their safety, government has taken several steps. Some recent laws and policies that directly and indirectly cater to the safety of women are listed below:

This information was given by the Minister of State for Women and Child Development Smt. Savitri Thakur in the Rajya Sabha in reply to a question today.