Law to combat violence against women

With the cabinet approving the draft of a law titled The Domestic Violence (Resistance and Protection) Act, 2010 one hopes that the legal framework being envisaged is more focused and substantive than anything we have known by way of addressing repression on women. It should be only a matter of time before it is tabled as a bill before the parliament and passed.
At this point, let's make it clear that the power of good it can wield is fundamentally hinged on awareness and user-friendliness of the legal provisions contained in the law so that these get implemented. Therefore, the first priority is to mount a massive campaign towards making the public, particularly women, aware of the major features of the law, beckoning them to utilise them with a promise of legal aid to victims and detailing the procedures to seek redress. This will have the dual, preventive and remedial, effects. Law can only operate when a violation is reported, brought up to the police and goes to court. For all we know, by far a greater number of incidents of violence go unreported. How can we possibly address domestic violence if it does not come to light, if the victim is muted, or no one volunteers to furnish any information about an occurrence taking place, or on a long simmer.
Given these disquieting realities, it is of utmost importance that the government, local bodies, NGOs, women rights activist groups work together to create awareness on a sustained basis among the masses of the people about the existence of the law, availability of legal options and the ways to go about them. In all fairness, we grant that individually they are capable of disseminating information which they perhaps do in varying degrees. But unless there is an orchestration of efforts tailored to the characteristics of domestic violence in the urban areas and rural habitats, the existence of the law by itself can be of little help.
While we build up a massive awareness campaign on that level there is another reservoir of potential we must tap in on to carry forward the task. In this very important category fall schools, madrashas, colleges, vocational institutes and universities where discussions should be held, the students engaged in discourses to motivate themselves to sensitise people around them about the provisions of the law.