Social Action Committees: Community Intervention to Reduce Gender-based Violence

Abstract

This article analyses the principles and processes of a state-sponsored intervention to deal with gender-based violence in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in south India. Anchored within a poverty-alleviation programme, this intervention is implemented through Social Action Committees (SACs) which are small groups of women drawn from women’s collectives of self-help groups (SHGs). In this article, we critically explicate three key themes that we found to be characterising the philosophy and processes of the SAC intervention: restorative justice, psychosocial support, and engagement with men.