Sakhi One Stop Centres: five services for women facing violence

Sakhi One Stop Centres give women facing violence five services under one roof. One Stop Centre Scheme started on 1 April 2015 and now runs under the Sambal sub-scheme of Mission Shakti.

Five services are available:

• Police assistance for registering a complaint
• Medical support, coordinated with the district hospital
• Legal aid and advice on available remedies
• Psycho-social counselling, both initial and ongoing
• Temporary shelter for up to five days, and a woman can stay with her children, girls of any age and boys up to 12 years

Women can visit the One Stop Centre in their district or call the Women Helpline at 181, a toll-free 24-hour line that connects callers to the nearest centre and is linked to the 112 emergency system. It works in all States and Union Territories except West Bengal, and the OSC dashboard lists centres by state and district.

Ministry of Women and Child Development lists 770 functional One Stop Centres, and the scheme rules are in the One Stop Centre scheme document. Details of the Women Helpline are on the Women Helpline scheme page.

In Uttar Pradesh, a parliamentary reply dated 16 December 2022 recorded 75 centres, one in each district, and a Lok Sabha reply from March 2021 recorded about 1.46 lakh cases handled by the state centres, a total reported at that time and not the latest count. Women in the state can also call the Women Power Line at 1090 or 112 for emergency help.