Female prisoners' state sparks worry

The provision of less than five sanitary pads per month, unavailability of drinking water and recent reports of brutality within jails has prompted the Women and Child Development (WCD) Ministry to launch an "intensive survey" of woman inmates. WCD minister Maneka Gandhi said the intent is introduce an outside influence through an ombudsman to check violence in jails.

"National Commission for Woman (NCW) has taken it upon itself to prepare a proforma and sent it to all the Director Generals of jails and state chief secretaries. The implementation deadline will be February 15," she said.

Gandhi added that the normal manual for prisoners has been sent to Delhi School of Law to be amended within a month to become an ideal for women. Sources said that some of the key amendments are to be in the areas of menstrual hygiene, mulaqat facilities, in the way women are strip-searched and provisions of interaction of inmates with lawyers.

NCW's acting chief Rekha Sharma said that the proforma will be in 144 central jails with the help of partner NGOs. She said that over 60 visits, NCW found that jails were overcrowded, had no proper access to napkins, legal awareness, and children – living with their mothers – were not educated.

Pad paucity

• NCW found that only five sanitary pads were allowed to a female inmate, per month 
• There was also a scarcity of drinking water and improper access to legal aid