SHILLONG, NOV 11: The social welfare department has submitted the proposed Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for addressing the issue of early marriages and violence against women and children in the state.
Informing this after chairing a consultative meeting with stakeholders on Tuesday, adviser to the social welfare department Paul Lyngdoh said, “As far as the plan of action of the government is concerned, today we are in a position, we have already submitted our proposed standard operating procedures (SOPs) whereby the various implications of POCSO and the fact that there is rampant premature marriages of adolescents and minors, how do we work out a balance between what is being practiced and what the law of the land says, how do we come up with balancing act between the two.”
“We have submitted our SOPs and it is now lying with the advocate general of the state to give his final opinion and then once that is done it will be widely published and it will be submitted to the courts especially the Meghalaya High Court as there are several cases that are lying pending with it when it comes to early marriages,” he added.
Lyngdoh highlighted the challenges in implementing laws like the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act in rural areas, where awareness about such laws is lacking.
“An Act like POCSO for instance is something most of the villages are unaware of and because we do not have the child marriages institutionalized in Meghalaya, therefore, it becomes another challenge. Since we have never had child marriage and yet we have early marriages being practices in all across throughout the state, we have multiple numbers of girl children who conceived at the age of 13-14 and when law enforcement take place and you have to arrest the offenders then the village pleads ignorance and say that this has been our practice for generations together – those are challenges which is why we also need to create awareness at that level,” he said adding “We have counsellors, experts, and CDPOs who will reach out to far-flung villages to create awareness about these laws.”
The former cabinet minister emphasized the importance of community policing and strengthening Village Defence Parties (VDPs) to support law enforcement agencies.
“In fact, this is one aspect where I have always advocated that apart from law enforcement agencies stepping in, we have to encourage community policing which is lacking in our state. Several villages have a police outpost or a station which is remote, which takes at least 3-4 hours to reach to the nearest police outpost or station but what we can do here is encourage women and in fact the entire village to come up and help us with community policing through the village defence parties (VDPs) which have been adequately strengthened by the law – they have the sanction of law. These VDPs are also working as foot soldiers of the police department,” he said adding that “once we are able to create the necessary eco-system where the village is aware and would also like to support such a system then we will be able to come to a point where we drastically reduced these instances of abuse of women and acts of violence against women and children.”
 for addressing the issue of early marriages and violence against women and children in the state.){kind=link}