181 deals with calls of illegal confinement by family

A 27-year-old doctor‘s marriage began as a nightmare after she was forced by her family to tie the knot against her own wishes about a year ago. It was the timely intervention of the 181 helpline for women that the UP-based girl could take shelter in a government-run home in the city.

The trauma of the young medical practitioner began in July last year when she told her family that she wanted to marry a Kashmiri boy, who belonged to a different caste. The family not only inflicted physical injuries on her but forcibly got her engaged to another person. She was forced to marry at gunpoint by her own father. As the girl reportedly belonged to a well-known political family, the police too did not provide her timely help. Finally, the girl convinced her husband to take her to Delhi. She somehow managed to contact 181, which got an FIR registered against her family and also moved her to a shelter home.

Like the young medical practitioner, another teenager too was rescued from the clutches of her own family by the 181 helpline through the intervention of the local police in Jodhpur on Wednesday.

These are not standalone cases. Statistics show that 181 received as many as 266 calls from Delhi women related to illegal confinement by their family members from December 12, 2012. About 14-odd such calls were from other states. Of the 266 calls received from Delhi, 25 cases now stand closed. As many as 186 cases are in progress and there were 46 others where primary intervention was done by the helpline. In eight cases, the complaining women turned hostile.

An expert said that cases of illegal confinement where victims fear their own near and dear ones are the most difficult ones. “One, the victim is under direct threat from her own family. Secondly, many victims give up as they succumb to family pressure.”

There is a unanimous view among experts and counsellors that the handling of such cases needs a lot of professionalism as their direct intervention can pose a direct threat to the life and safety of such victims. “That’s why we often request policemen accompanying social activists to visit such victims in plain clothes. Our primary job is also to provide a safe shelter to these victims.”

A source in the city administration said the helpline was also conducting a detailed study on such cases to find out their root cause and how it could provide effective intervention to save such victims. “Similar problems are seen in cases of live-in relationships where small-town girls fall prey... Many such women have ended up as mental wrecks.”