June 26: State homes run by the Women and Child Welfare Department are meant to protect vulnerable women, impart some useful skill and rehabilitate women back into society. Thanks to the callousness of parents and society at large their mandate is being stretched to the limit and they are sheltering girls and women who have been thrown out like so much garbage by their cruel families. A large number of inmates of these homes are girls who married without their parents’ consent and before they reached the legal aid of consent and have been brought here after their parents filed complaints. Andhra Pradesh continues to top the list of states with large numbers of child marriages. An increasing number of parents are making use of the law to break up the ‘love’ marriages of their underage daughters and pack them off to the state homes by calling in the police. As a result, a number of child brides, some of whom have children, will stay here till they attain 18 years of age. Interestingly most of them are waiting till they can go back to their husbands. “My parents were unhappy with my marriage as I married a Muslim man. My parents are not willing to take me back, and though my husband wants me, I cannot go back to him. My parents will take some extreme step I fear,” says Shivangi (name changed), now 18 and living in one such state-run home in Hyderabad. Shivangi has a 10-month-old son and has been attending lace-making and tailoring classes at the centre. After finishing her course, she wants to move on and set up her own business somewhere here. Shivangi eloped with a neighbour after she passed class six two years ago. She has been through a lot; she was forcibly taken to a juvenile home from where she came to the state-run home, delivered a baby, and is now forced to remain in this state home in Yousufguda because of the case booked by her parents. “They had asked for their daughter to be given protection since she was a minor,” said the authorities at the state home. Vaishali (name changed) from Nalgonda district married a boy from a lower caste when she was 15 years old. After her parents lodged a complaint with the police that she is a minor, the police had taken her to the juvenile home. She now has a one-month-old son and has just turned 18. Threatened by her parents she, too, is in two minds about what she should do now. While state-run homes are traditionally meant for rescued women and abandoned children, there are more child brides here at any given point of time than there are other kinds of women. Also to be found in state run homes are victims of the prostitution mafia, orphans, beggars and mentally unstable women found wandering the roads. Ms Shivaparvathy, assistant director of the Women and Child Welfare Department, says 99 per cent of women rescued from the flesh trade are taken back by their families as most of them are pushed into the trade by their own family members. “We give them vocational training while they are at the state homes but, sadly, many of them keep coming back as their families force them into the flesh trade again. Of every 10 such rescued victims, seven return to the trade while two or three come back to state homes,”she says. According to the data available with the Department, around 50 per cent of women and child victims of trafficking belong to scheduled castes and 30 per cent belong to other backward castes. The districts where this shameful practice is rampant are Nalgonda, Chittoor, Guntur, Khammam and Anantpur. Those who land up in the government homes are given some sort of vocational training and sent back to their parental homes within six months to one year. But if they are not welcome there, they may continue to stay at the state home for three to four years. At any given point of time, there are between 500-600 women in Swadhar Centres, state homes and Ujjwala shelters across the state. About 150-200 abandoned children live in state homes and Sishu vihars across the state. The children are mostly abandoned by unwed mothers or by parents and relatives if they are HIV/AIDS positive, or mentally challenged. About 60 percent of abandoned children are females. The callousness of parents is such that often they refuse to take back their lost or abandoned children. S. Lakshmi (name changed) was brought up in a juvenile home in the city and after attaining 18 years of age, she was shifted to the state home. Her parents were traced when she was living in the juvenile home but they had refused to take her back because she was a girl. Juvenile homes may provide some shelter but they are no substitute for a caring family. Lakshmi has lost interest in learning anything, shows symptoms of mental retardation and does not want to go anywhere. She has been staying at the state home for the last five years, though the normal period an inmate is allowed to stay and train is two years. The appalling brutality towards women and children continues despite numerous laws introduced to stop it. Poor implementation of the law combined with the backwardness of our society and way of thinking causes millions of women and children to suffer a hopeless existence.
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