Mahila Thana

The project Mahila Thana, which is All Women Police Station in Hindi, documents the daily life inside the walls of the AWPS in the neighborhood of Delhi. In its first year of functioning, 439 First Registration Information were registered , more than half are dealing with dowry harassment.

The 16th of December 2012, the safety issues of the Indian women and gender violence were brought to the fore by the news of the gang rape and death of a young student in New Delhi, India. Since then funding and action plans have been implemented all around the country. In Gurugram, the millennium city in the state of Haryana, it was decided to open an All Women Police Station (AWPS) as in each of Haryana’s districts and this was completed in August 2015. The project Mahila Thana, which is All Women Police Station in Hindi, documents the daily life inside the walls of the AWPS of Gurugram.

The ACP (Assistant Commissionaire of Police) Dhaarna Yadav who is in charge of women’s initiative in the Haryana’s Police, explains that: “ Hundreds of years of invasions made India a patriarchal country so the mentality can not change in only few years. The best option is to create a comfortable zone for women such as the AWPS.”

UN, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and other non-governmental organization are all debating the bias of equality in the WPS (Women Police Station) and their benefits. However, everybody agrees that increasing women in the police force should have a positive impact on gender violence. A Woman & Child Desk in every police station may be a better option.

In India, policewomen represent only 6.11% of the total police force, a very low figure compared to 9% worldwide. As a result, female police officers are mainly assigned on woman and child crime. Inside Gurugram’s AWPS, 25 policewomen and 14 police officers are dealing everyday only with women's cases of crime, violence and divorce.

In its first year of functioning, the AWPS of Gurugram has registered 439 FRI (First Registration Information). This number doesn’t include the mediation center’s cases, which aims to avoid divorce and claim to resolve more than 70% of their cases in marital disputes through dialogue. More than half of the FRI (266) are registered under domestic violence and dowry harassment under section 498A of the Indian penal law. 68 FRI are dealing with rape cases, but police officers and gynecologists from the civil hospital, affirm that 90% of the cases against adult women are false. These cases are the result of love affairs, or issue surrounding arranged marriage…In the land of rape, Feminists and NGO’s claim than only a small number of cases are brought to the attention of the authorities and registered. In 2014 the CRB (Crime Record Bureau) records that women crime are only 11.4% of all crimes registered in India.

ACP Dhaarna Yadav comes every Tuesday to give advice on cases, follow up actions and find a mediation outcome. It is a busy day at the police station as people come for their case reviews and they bring relatives to support them. In December 2016, as a concerned mother, the ACP, created a child’s room in the police station in order to protect children. The room would allow children who were visiting the station to play while adults would deal with their dispute. The children of the staff are also welcome. This is the first time that this kind of initiative has happened in India.

During one opening of AWPS in Haryana, a school pupil recites, « I am lucky that I am a girl and I am studying. I am luckier that I am a girl and I am living. I am luckiest that I was not among the girls not allowed to be born ». The multiplication of AWPS in India sends a strong message against women and gender violence.

Project has been rewarded by the Bettye Lane Feminist Photo Award of the Duke University in Durham, USA and so enter in the Documentary Art Center of the University.