One of the major challenges which the litigation unit had to confront was to protect women’s rights to shelter.  Even prior to the enactment of the Domestic Violence Act, (which was enacted in 2005 and came into force in 2006),  we have been protecting the right to matrimonial residence through innovative strategies of civil injunctions in the Family Courts and District Courts.

The most common manifestation of violence that a married woman faces is her dispossession from the matrimonial home.  In the  absence of a specific statutory provision, it is through struggle and negotiations in courts, that we were able to use the general civil remedy of injunctions in order to prevent husbands and their families from throwing out women or selling /  renting out the premises which constitute her matrimonial home,   as an indirect means of dispossessing the wife. 

Almost all women  who approach us for guidance and advice are victims of domestic violence within the broad definition under the Domestic Violence Act and are subjected to either physical, emotional, sexual or economic abuse from their husbands /  partners or family members.
 

Women who are physically or emotionally abused come to us for advice regarding their rights upon divorce.  We have been  advising  them that there is no need to opt for divorce and it is possible to secure their rights to shelter through a civil injunction restraining their husbands from beating them or throwing them out of their  matrimonial residence.