Shillong, Oct 15: The woman helpline of the state Social Welfare department has recorded 736 complaints, including 457 already closed, in the past seven years.
279 complaints registered since 2017 are still “active”, according to department’s officials.
Till October this year, 193 cases were received by the woman helpline of which 60 are domestic violence, 18 online digital violence, 6 emotional abuse/violence, 26 legal disputes, 7 health issues, 2 physical violence, 63 others, 4 missing, 4 complaint at public/workplace, 1 racism, 1 displacement and 1 work place issue, the officials said.
The child helpline has received 315 cases during 2024-25 including, 51 related to child abuse, 2 child marriage, 8 child abandonment, 1 child labour, 11 child missing, 15 child found, 3 addiction/substance abuse. 55 cases were successfully resolved.
In 2023-24, of 142 cases received through child helpline, 112 were successfully resolved, the officials said.
Social welfare minister Paul Lyngdoh said the success rate of resolving these cases would be around 90%.
He also expressed happiness over the rising level of awareness among the sufferers about seeking assistance through the helplines that had led to increase in the number of complaints.
Mentioning about earlier practice of lodging complaints with traditional village chiefs, who don’t have the wherewithal to deal with such cases, he said, “Now that there is more awareness, people are coming forward and therefore the number of cases have also gone up.”
Meanwhile, the minister referred to online platforms where “Meghalaya is considered one of the safest states in India in terms of women and children”.
“You can find for yourselves visitors to Meghalaya saying that they travel alone or with their children or just mother and children, go to various villages and they never felt any sense of being threatened or not being safe,” he said.
Lyngdoh also briefed on the measures taken by Social Welfare department to address hesitancy of women to report domestic violence.
“We have increased our interaction with the various social groups and women organisations and through the media, I would like to encourage women to come forward (to seek assistance through helpline)…we will certainly address their problems,” he said.
He also urged social organizations and traditional women bodies (seng kyntheis) come forward to be associated with the government in offering all possible assistance under the law to the needy women and children.
