Uttar Pradesh Police Mahila Samman Prakoshth · Police capacity building
Navchetna: Gender-responsive police training
Navchetna brought the law and the human response together. Police officers learned how to investigate and report violence against women and children, while practising the communication and behaviour that make a police station a safer place to seek help.
- Small-group workshops from constables to senior officers
- Legal knowledge, investigation and communication taught together
- Training across police stations and specialist units
The challenge
Legal provisions alone cannot ensure a sensitive response when someone reports violence. Police personnel also need the confidence to recognise gender-based harm, handle inquiries properly and communicate without adding to a complainant’s distress. Navchetna, meaning “new consciousness,” was designed to bring these issues into police training.
What officers learned
Small-group workshops covered laws and procedures relating to dowry deaths, acid attacks, domestic violence, sexual harassment, stalking, kidnapping, rape and human trafficking. Officers discussed methods of inquiry and investigation, crime reporting, the legal system and interaction with other stakeholders. Sessions placed special emphasis on behaviour towards people seeking help at a police station and on communication skills.
How the training worked
Constables through senior officers asked questions, shared their experiences and worked through ways to improve responses to crimes against women and children.
Workshops included rural and urban police stations, traffic and railway police, anti-human trafficking units and special juvenile police units.
UNICEF, ActionAid and AALI, a legal collective, supported the workshops.
Participants received certificates, and interested district police officers received letters of appreciation to encourage the programme’s continuation.
Reach and results
More than 2,000 officers were trained directly and 6,000 reached indirectly. An ActionAid impact analysis found better knowledge of relevant legal requirements and provisions among trained officers.
Navchetna illustrates a capacity-building approach to gender-responsive policing: law, investigative procedure and survivor-facing behaviour were taught together, with police and civil-society partners contributing. This is a historical case study, not a claim that the same training is currently offered.