Programmes
WRAG has three parallel programmes:A. CAPACITY-BUILDING PROGRAMME
The overall objectives of the programme are as follows:
- To strengthen the capacities of underprivileged women to form a collective voice for demanding socio-economic and legal rights;
- To create and strengthen support structures at the community level for women and girls in distress; and
- To continue to improve the socio-legal and economic status of underprivileged women and girls living in communities.
Activities include information dissemination and skill-building activities with women, adolescent girls, single women, mahila mandals and youth from underprivileged and marginalized communities, as well as information dissemination on women’s rights, human rights and the law with varied groups.
B. CAMPAIGN & ADVOCACY PROGRAMME
The overall objectives of the programme include:
- ending the climate of impunity existing within the country, and addressing issues of justice and accountability for violations of human rights in general and women’s rights in particular;
- strengthening capacities of women from minority and marginalized communities in the discourse on justice and accountability;
- working towards integration of a gender perspective in Indian laws, including Muslim family law; and
- promoting the relevance of international legal standards within the human rights discourse in India, particularly on women’s rights;
As part of this programme, WRAG houses the National Secretariat of ICC-India: an anti-impunity campaign on mass crimes and international law. It also works actively on Muslim family law campaign; campaigns on issues of secularism and justice and accountability issues for violation of women’s human rights. WRAG has been actively engaged in the Communal Violence Bill campaign and the campaign for implementation of recommendations of the Srikrishna Commission that enquired into communal violence in Mumbai 1992-93.
C. RESEARCH, PUBLICATION AND DOCUMENTATION
The objectives of the programme are:
- To ground / shape WRAG’s rights-based interventions with women living in communities, based on a foundation provided by scientific and systematic research;
- To take stock of ongoing socio-legal and political developments on issues pertaining to secularism, human rights, gender and the law;
- To substantially contribute to existing knowledge on the impact of law and policy on women’s rights;
- To gain a better understanding of international human rights standards and inter-linkages of the same with human rights and law reform in the domestic sphere; and
- To enhance the effectiveness of capacity-building, and campaign and advocacy initiatives of the organization.
Through this programme, action and law research are undertaken; books and reports are published and distributed. Activities related to documentation, include maintaining and expanding WRAG’s library, documenting activities of the organization, and of socio-legal / political developments on issues that WRAG closely engages with, on issues of gender, human rights, secularism and the law.