Social Welfare Minister, Kyrmen Shylla “guaranteed” that a new chairperson to head the State Women’s Commission (SWC) would be notified within this month.
He was speaking to the Highland Post on the sidelines of the government sponsored programs on International Day of Persons with Disabilities, 2021.
Shylla was been asked this question many times over these months as the crucial institution to support women in distress has been lying handicapped for more than a year without a leader in place.
When pressed for a timeline he said, “The file has been cleared by the chief minister and the names are cleared,” he said.
When countered with the question that he had given this kind of verbal assurance in the past several months, Shylla emphasized that this time he guaranteed it.
“I guarantee that the chairperson of the women’s commission will be notified within this month,” Shylla said replying to the question.
Cases of crimes against women, domestic violence, murder, rape have been on the rise. The number of cases of women facing deplorable conditions in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic impacts is soaring in the state.
Sources in the office of the SWC said that the staff are doing their best to handle the cases before them. But as experts said without a sitting chairperson’s seal and signature, nothing that the staff does is actually legal. Their efforts are all in vain till they get a chairperson to vet their pronouncements.
It may be noted that the post went vacant in November 2020 when the then chairperson Theilin Phanbuh’s term came to an end.
Since then the government has called for applications two times. The first list was rejected. The government has been sitting on the second batch of applications for more than seven months. Rumour has it that the delay was because the powers-that-be allegedly wanted a person from a Garo Hills background to fill the crucial post.
