A total of 752 One Stop Centres operational in the country assisting 801062 Women

The Mission Shakti guidelines is effective from 01.04.2022 for addressing women’s needs on life cycle continuum basis. Mission Shakti has two sub-schemes – ‘Sambal’ and ‘Samarthya’. While “Sambal” sub-scheme is for safety and security of women, “Samarthya” sub-scheme aims at empowerment of women. The ‘Sambal’ sub-scheme consists of component of One Stop Centre (OSC) and the ‘Samarthya’ sub-scheme consists of component of Shakti Sadan (SS).

The One Stop Centre (OSC) is envisaged to provide support and assistance to women affected by violence and in distress, both in private and public spaces under one roof. OSCs provide an integrated range of services including medical aid, legal aid and advice, temporary shelter (for a maximum period of 5 days), police assistance, psycho-social counselling to needy women. The details of State/UT-wise operational One Stop Centres (OSCs) and women assisted till 30.09.2023 are at Annexure. Further, in such cases where women in distress require long term care and support, they are referred to Shakti Sadan (SS) where they can stay up to a maximum period of 3 years and arrangements are made by the implementing organization for providing vocational training/ skill development classes to the women through the Vocational Training Institutes recognized by the Directorate General of Employment and Training under the Ministry of Labour and Employment/ Training Partners of National Skill Development Council (NSDC).

The OSCs and SSs work in close coordination with the Anti-Human Trafficking Units (AHTUs)/ Women Help Desks (WHDs) in Police Stations by utilising the network of NGOs, Women’s Groups, Youth Groups, Panchayat, Hotels & tour operators and other stakeholders to gather information on traffickers, suspicious people and vulnerable families and prevent/ rescue the victims and also help them in initial documentation and registration of FIR.

The Government, from time to time, conducts capacity building programme for the functionaries of OSCs through various institutions like National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development (NIPCCD) etc. In this regard, the Government has engaged the services of National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) for providing basic and advanced training under the project named ‘StreeManoraksha’ to the staff of One Stop Centres (OSCs) across the country on handling psycho-social and mental health care needs of women facing violence and in distress. Since inception, the Ministry has conducted trainings for States/UTs at various locations including Jammu & Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Assam (for 8 North-Eastern States), Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka in collaboration with the reputed Universities/School of Social Work/Department of Social Work. The Ministry has also conducted seminars on Facilitating Safety and Empowerment of Women through One Stop Centres. Further, the Ministry also engages with the State/UTs regularly through its various Schemes of this Ministry like Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP), One Stop Centre (OSC), Women Help Line (WHL), Hub for Empowerment of Women, etc to both increase awareness and provide 24 hours emergency and non-emergency response to women, both in public and private spaces by linking them with appropriate authority such as Police, OSC, Hospital, Legal Services etc.

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ANNEXURE

Details of State/UT-wise operational One Stop Centres (OSCs) and women assisted from 1.4.2015 to 30.09.2023

This information was given by the Minister of Women and Child Development, Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.