Stress laid on legal awareness among women in tea gardens

OUR STAFF CORRESPONDENT

DIBRUGARH: An interface meeting with women stakeholders at Maud Tea Estate was held on Friday.

A legal awareness programme was conducted on the theme 'Empowering women through legal awareness'. The awareness programme was supported by National Legal Services Authority and National Commission for Women and was organized by the District Legal Service Authority, Dibrugarh in collaboration with SEWA (NGO) and Save the Children, where 70 women workers and adolescent girls greatly benefitted from the basic awareness and education on law and their applicability.

During the inaugural session, Rani Boro, secretary, District Legal Service Authority of Dibrugarh, spoke on the importance of law education among the women in the tea gardens. There are many issues in the tea garden which are not addressed because very few cases are reported. Therefore, legal awareness amongst the women is mandatory. She elaborately explained on the various options where women could access facilities on the rights of women and children through tele-call, written application submission and information sharing to the important stakeholders for immediate action.

The technical session was taken by Anu Dey Chiring Phukan, an advocate from District Legal Service Authority. She emphasized family law, marriage, divorce, and women's right to property. She explained to the participants how family law was affected in a family when the social norms were broken; when the marriageable age was not maintained; reasons for domestic violence in the family and other rights that women could inherit when the men folk break the traditional norms in a family.

Sudipta Ghosh Biswas, an advocate from District Legal Service Authority, laid stress on family maintenance and judicial separation. She said that children were vulnerable due to technology update through mobile phones and internet facilities. "Child marriage cases are alarmingly increasing in the tea estates which we need to check, especially by the parents so that girls are not victimized and lured," she said.

Biswas explained the participants elaborately about child marriage cases, child labour and POCSO Act applicable for the children and how compensation was given to victims. She urged the women to be vigilant about their children's social media use.

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