VISAKHAPATNAM, NOV. 28. The National Commission for Women (NCW) wants a comprehensive understanding of the larger issue concerning suicides by farmers in the State, while extending relief to the victims.

Making this point at a press conference here on Sunday, the NCW Member, Nirmala Sitaram, felt that after extending relief to the victim's family, there was also need to provide technical assistance for an alternative livelihood to them. "It is important for the Government to reach out to the affected farmers. But the larger issue is what pushes them to commit suicide. That is where the Commission is concerned,'' she explained. Relief was yet to reach many victims, she noted, and called for expeditious implementation of the relief scheme launched by the State Government with good intention.

Poor hygiene

The NCW member, who also visited the King George Hospital (KGH), expressed shock at the poor hygienic conditions. A tipper to lift the garbage was stationed right in front of the gynaecological and obstetrics wards with the waste strewn all around it. The toilets were unclean and under such conditions, even if good medicare was given, it would prove ineffective, she observed. "There is no bed linen and the rexine sheets are torn. Why don't they use cleaning agents? There is a state of helplessness among the inmates there,'' she said.

Ms. Sitaram also was unhappy that the AIDS ward in the KGH was in a bad state and that a proposal to improve it was waiting clearance since long. In fact, there was a scheme to extend medical aid to the patients who had tested positive for HIV launched over a year ago but the local authorities seemed ignorant of it, she said. She disclosed that she had asked the District Collector to convene a meeting of the KGH Development Committee immediately to address the issues.

Surprising feature

The NCW Member, who also paid a visit to the Central Prison in the morning, was surprised that a majority of the over 60 women undertrials there were booked for bootlegging. She wondered how the males or the other major culprits up in the illicit liquor trade ladder could escape, while the women were made victims. She called for breaking the chain in such cases and said that while genuine women offenders should be punished, it was the male members who should be arrested under normal circumstances in preference to the women as the latter run the family. Another aspect on which Ms. Sitaram expressed anxiety was the falling child sex ratio in the zero-six year age group. The maternal mortality rate had increased and the reportage on death of women was inadequate, she lamented.

She also said that a meeting of fisherwomen would be held in the city in December to address their problems.