THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It is not surprising that the mood within the state’s first-ever home for sexual abuse victims, Nirbhaya Home, will be tense and highly volatile. But administrative apathy has made the condition in the Home considerably worse. The advance payment to be transferred to the Home for the trimester beginning July has not yet been given. The delayed payment has been the norm for the last many years. What’s more, the Social Justice Department has piled up arrears of nearly Rs 25 lakh towards the additional expenses borne by the Home.
The advance is only for staff salaries and the Rs 2000 per inmate. But what is left unpaid for years is the money the Home authorities manage to pay, mostly from their own pockets, for various activities like transportation, medical expenses and food for the inmates. Salary revisions that were supposed to come into force by the end of 2015, too, have not yet been implemented. Some of the Nirbhaya employees work at subsistence wages.
Nirbhaya Cell officials argue that if at all there was delay in payment it was the fault of those running the Home, in this case the NGO, Mahila Samakhya. “They have to first furnish the necessary documents like utilisation and expenditure statements and only then can we release the money,” said Dr Mini Nair of Nirbhaya Cell. “At times, there could be some delay in getting bills cleared by the Treasury,” she said.
The indifference of the administrative machinery has reached such a level that a broken window pane of the Home, from where many inmates had attempted to escape, has not been mended despite repeated reminders. Intriguingly, Nirbhaya authorities are not allowed to transport the victims in cars, or in secure vehicles, while taking them to hospitals or courts. They have been asked to travel in buses.
There have been instances when a victim had to travel by bus four times to a court in Thrissur and still was unable to record the 164 statement. “These are occasions when the girl’s safety is seriously compromised,” a Social Justice Department official admitted.
