National Commission for Women

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The National Commission for Women is a statutory body for women in the Indian Union. The Commission is established under specific provisions of the Indian Constitution. The present head of the Commission is Girija Vyas.

1 Activities
2 Positions
3 See also
4 Footnotes
5 External links

[edit] Activities

The objective of the NCW is to represent the rights of women in India and to provide a voice for their issues and concerns. They have actively published about and campaigned regarding several issues with women in India, such as dowry, equal representation for women in jobs, politics, religion and the exploitation of women for labor.They have also talked about police abuses against women[3]

The commission regularly brings out a monthly newsletter, "Rashtra Mahila" in Hindi and English[4].

[edit] Positions

Recently, in December 2006 & Jan. 2007, it found itself at the center of a minor controversy over its insistence that the law not be changed to make adulterous wives equally prosecutable by their husbands.

But the grounds on which Ms Vyas resists the logic of making this a criminal offence — particularly for women, as often recommended — are not as encouraging. She is averse to holding the adulterous woman equally culpable as the adulterous man because women, she believes, are never offenders. They are always the victims. ^[1]

There is, however, no denying the value of the commission’s efforts to guarantee women security even in less conventional relationships^[1].

The NCW also has demanded that women should not be punished for adultery as she is "the victim and not an offender" in such cases. They have also advocated for the amendment of Section 198 of CrPC to allow women to file complaints against unfaithful husbands and prosecute them for their promiscuous behaviour.This was in response to loopholes in the Indian Penal code that allowed men to file adultery charges against other men who have engaged in illicit relations but does not allow women to file charges against their husbands. ^[2]