NALSA Launches Campaign For Empowering Women Through Legal Awareness [Read Press Note]

The campaign, rolled out on the occasion of 74^th Independence Day of India, is a Joint initiative of the NALSA and the National Commission for Women to make women aware of the relevant rights and protections available to them under the various laws.

Under the Project, 570 legal literacy programmes shall be carried out for women in 285 districts in the States of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

This will help the women to enhance their capacities so that they are able to advance their rights and navigate the judicial and administrative set up for actualisation of their rights, a press note issued by the NALSA states.

In his Presidential address, Justice Ramana emphasized that legal awareness programmes are sine qua non to enable women to take advantage of the progressive polices being introduced by the Government.

"Historically, women have been discriminated due to patriarchal ideology, rampant tradition and norms. However, with the liberalisation and rejuvenation of women empowerment movements, the status of women has transformed. With economic independence and education, women have a better opportunity to compete with men in any field," he said.

Justice Ramana also iterated the stats pertaining to women's participation in various legal awareness programmes conducted by the Legal Services Authorities across the district of the country over the past year and he noted that over two lakh women were provided legal representation. Moreover, even the legal aid movement is primarily being led by women, with over 12,000 female panel lawyers and 24,000 para legal volunteers.

On this occasion, Ms. Rekha Sharma, Chairperson, National Commission for Women (NCW) in her address said that women empowerment comes only from awareness; unless women know of their legal rights, there can be no women empowerment.

Mr. Ashok Kumar Jain, Member Secretary, NALSA gave an overview of the project. The event was also attended by Executive Chairpersons of eight SLSAs; Ms. Meeta Rajivlochan, Member Secretary, NCW; Officers of NALSA and NCW; Secretaries of DLSAs; Nodal Officers and panel lawyers.

Further on the occasion, NALSA released its "Handbook on laws relating to Women", which covers laws relating to women in easy to understand language. Apart from this, other IEC material consisting of seven booklets was also released by Justice Ramana.

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