Short Stay Homes: A reality check
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COMMENTS 
A new study of 22 of Orissa's 32 Short Stay Homes for deserted and destitute women reports trafficking of some of the inmates, cramped living conditions and inadequate vocational training and counselling
In a dingy hall, the green walls of which are damp with incessant rain, there is a blob of scarlet in a corner. Up close, the brightness of Sabita Nayak's sari does not reach her pale face. Eyes downcast, robot-like, this 35-year-old woman concentrates on embroidering a peacock onto a cloth. Nayak, from Godupada village in Puri, walked into this Short Stay Home (SSH) four months ago. Tortured for 10 long years by a licentious drunkard husband, her daughter snatched away from her by her in-laws, Nayak is in search of a reason to continue living.
There is more hope in Savita Maharathi, 21, of Jhankia village in Khurda, who married a Muslim against much opposition. When the man died leaving her with a two-year-old daughter, her in-laws turned her out. At her parents' home, she was told that her three unmarried sisters wouldn't find grooms if she stayed there. Maharathi still dreams. "I will go back after my sisters are married, and set up an STD booth," she says.
There is one thing that stands out in the lives of all the women who seek refuge in the 32 SSHs in Orissa - they are all victims of circumstances and a society tilted in favour of men. A recent study entitled 'Short Stay Homes: their effectiveness and relevance in rendering support to women in distress', has found that such women find little succour from welfare interventions. All 32 SSHs in the state are run by NGOs, with aid from the Central Social Welfare Board. The study - yet to be released publicly - covers 21 SSHs in 15 districts of Orissa; the Eastern India Office of OXFAM GB conducted it.
Polygamy, desertion, drunken violence compounded by landlessness and zero literacy are factors that drive women from tribal areas to these temporary homes. Women from the coastal areas turn up because of irreconcilable marital discord or problems with in-laws (mainly for dowry), which are compounded by the refusal of parents to accept them. Most of these women are semi-literate and have rarely completed school. Besides, young widows and unwed mothers seeking refuge from anti-socials out to trap them into trafficking are growing in numbers.
But are SSHs safe havens? The researcher records having received several unofficial reports of trafficking of women in SSHs. A telling indicator is one District Collector's observation that being male he could not go on inspection visits to the local SSH, as it would be misunderstood! The study found no attempt on the part of NGOs to improve the public perception, which attaches a stigma to women seeking shelter in a SSH.
Even while cramped, dingy, bedless living areas - which double as vocational training spaces - are a common feature in all homes, the admission of children accompanying the destitute woman poses a vexing question. Government guidelines permit children up to the age of seven to stay with their mothers and attend local schools; thereafter the children are supposed to go to Bal and Kanya ashrams.
While government funding patterns provide for up to seven children per home, the study discovered a contradictory practice. Often, women with only one child found the doors of the SSH closed to them on one pretext or the other. According to the study, three homes do not have a single child inmate, 12 have less than three children; only three homes have the expected (or allowed) seven to nine children. No one seems to have an answer to the question: Where could a needy woman with two or three young children seek refuge, even for a few days?
Women involved in a police or court case too, often find SSH shutters closed on their faces. Besides, most SSHs are running at 80-100% capacity with an average of 30 inmates, leaving barely any room for the new needy.
The duration of a woman's stay at a particular home also emerged as a contentious issue. Guidelines allow a stay of six months to three years. While all SSH superintendents agree that three years is too short a period to expect adequate rehabilitation, in actual practice only 40%of the homes allow women to stay for so long. 45% of the homes set an 18-month limit, and 15% allow only a 12-month stay; and their only explanation is a lack of funds.
Again, SSHs are expected to provide a holistic rehabilitation package including trauma counselling, medical treatment, legal help, education and vocational training. In 2001-02, each of the 32 SSHs received Rs 450,000 (1US$=Rs47) from the Government of India as grant-in-aid to enable them to provide proper vocational training and counselling. The facts, of course, show otherwise. For vocational training, 60% of the SSHs resort to the typical tailoring and making-incense-sticks courses in which tribal women show no interest whatsoever. While 40% do offer training in mushroom cultivation, making soft toys, textile block printing, these programmes are hindered by lack of funds, aptitude or marketing linkages. Sometimes, a nominal amount is given as labour wages but individual benefits are rare, and so women leave the homes with empty pockets.
Six homes do not have any counselling facility, and very few employ trained counsellors. Most inmates interviewed during the study wept inconsolably; they were apparently unable to reconcile to their trauma, some of them even after two years. The study finds a disturbing antagonism prevailing, albeit under the surface, between the women and the care-giving staff. A number of district monitoring authorities have gone on record saying that NGOs are running SSHs like commercial ventures, merely providing lodging and boarding without being sensitive to the other needs of inmates.
Delayed money or not enough of it, say the NGOs, is what is wrong with the SSHs. And that there is a lack of coordination between monitoring agencies and SSH managements. But the state department of Women and Child Development counters that the NGOs do not furnish inspection reports and that they try to bypass administrative hierarchy channels, which is why funding remains a problem.
Blame game apart, the fact remains that in a milieu of growing social and family discord, SSHs are becoming increasingly crucial to women as last-resort crisis intervention centres. And this fact seems to have escaped the state government's observation. And for the NGOs - 10 of the 21 SSHs covered under the study began post the supercyclone of 1999, when aid in large amounts flowed into Orissa - welfare is business as usual.
Women's Feature Service, August 2003