Girls' shelter homes to be monitored to check abuse: NCW chief

Organisations across the country running shelter homes for girls will soon be subjected to tight monitoring to ensure that no crime or abuse is committed at such facilities, the National Commission for Women (NCW) has said.
NCW chairperson Mamta Sharma told reporters here that she will write to the directors general of police of all states and other officials concerned to "initiate an inquiry into the functioning of shelter homes for girls in the country and to keep a constant vigil over their working".
The comments by Sharma came in the wake of a case in Jaipur in which five deaf and mute girls at a hostel run by an NGO were allegedly raped and beaten by staff at the facility.

Violations against girls had been going on for a long time at Awaaz Foundation, Sharma said, adding that the NGO has now been blacklisted and its registration cancelled.
Expressing concern over the rise in crimes against woman, Sharma said that following the Delhi gangrape case of December 16 last year, NCW had started several programmes for sensitising people.
"(We have) formed protection forces and taskforces that have started working with railway police to sensitise women passengers and staff at railway stations," Sharma said.
Another programme aims at training two officials from each police station in the country as part of a sensitisation drive, she added.

Protests had rocked the country after a paramedical student was brutally gangraped on a moving bus in Delhi and died later in Singapore while receiving treatment there.