SHILLONG, Aug 22 ? Close on the heels of being pulled up by the Centre for failing to set up a State commission for women, the Meghalaya Government has processed the setting up of a forum to address key issues relating to women, including violence against the fairer sex. The Union Minister for Women and Child Development Kanti Singh on August 12 last in New Delhi came down heavily on seven States, including Meghalaya, for their failure to constitute State commissions for women.
State Social Welfare Minister Martle Mukhim said he had instructed the State Social Welfare department to prepare details in this regard. Talking to reporters, Social Welfare Director L Diengdoh said that though the process of setting up the State Women?s Commission has been started, it has not yet been notified and its members are yet to be constituted. The Commission has been framed in accordance with the guidelines of the National Women?s Commission, Diengdoh said, adding that the department gathered information from women?s commissions in other States.
Meanwhile, prominent women?s organization Lympung ki Seng Kynthei (LSK), Theiling Phanbuh, has expressed disappointment that the assurance made by chief secretary PJ Bazeley on the International Women?s Day in March for tabling the Women?s Commission Bill in the June Assembly session has not materialised.
The LSK, after consultation with members of the Forum protesting violence against women and girls, would pursue the matter with Meghalaya Chief Minister DD Lapang and the chief secretary for early constitution of the State women?s commission. It may be mentioned here that the forum had submitted its 25-point charter of demands to the Chief Minister last year, demanding the strengthening of one-stop crisis centres, shelter homes, and violence intervention centres and creation of complaint cells run by women in police stations in the State. The forum also demanded conducting gender sensitisation drives at all levels of governance, legislature, executive and judiciary, besides educational institutions and professions.