The Crucial Role of Civil Society in Supporting Victims: A Case Study from India

When a crime occurs, the state focuses on prosecuting the accused. The victim, meanwhile, is often left to navigate trauma, legal complexity, and social stigma largely alone. In India, this gap between what the formal justice system provides and what victims actually need has been filled – sometimes remarkably – by civil society organisations (CSOs). These organisations, which include NGOs, advocacy groups, research bodies, and community collectives, have become an indispensable part of the victim support ecosystem in India. Understanding how they function helps us appreciate both their achievements and the structural challenges they continue to face.

What are civil society organisations in the context of victimology? 🔗

Civil society organisations are non-state, non-profit bodies that operate in the space between the government and the individual. In the context of victimology – the study of victims of crime and their relationship with offenders and the justice system – CSOs serve a crucial bridging function. They reach victims who fall through the cracks of formal institutions, providing services that range from immediate crisis support to long-term legal and psychological rehabilitation. In India, where the criminal justice system has historically treated the victim as little more than a witness in a “State versus accused” case, the role of CSOs takes on even greater significance. As one academic overview of Indian victimology notes, “the victim is the forgotten man of our criminal justice system” – a reality CSOs work actively to change.

Advocacy: pushing for victims’ rights in law and policy 🔗

One of the most impactful roles CSOs play is advocacy – influencing laws, policies, and government practices to better protect victims. This is not merely symbolic; in India, several legislative and policy changes have been driven, at least in part, by organised civil society pressure.

A landmark example is the Indian Society of Victimology (ISV), established in 1992 at the University of Madras in Chennai. The ISV drafted a model Victim Assistance Bill and submitted it to the Ministry of Law and Justice, the Ministry of Home Affairs, and the Law Commission of India, urging the enactment of a national victim compensation law. The United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in Vienna supported this initiative by writing directly to the Indian government. This is civil society functioning at its most policy-oriented – translating research and victim experiences into concrete legislative proposals.

More broadly, organisations like the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) deploy public interest litigation (PIL) as a tool for systemic change. By filing PILs in high courts and the Supreme Court, HRLN has helped define human rights jurisprudence in India, creating binding legal precedents that protect the rights of crime victims, women, and marginalised communities. These are victories that benefit not just individual clients but all future victims who pass through the same system.

Research and documentation: building the evidence base 🔗

Effective victim support requires evidence – data about who is being victimised, in what patterns, and what interventions work. CSOs have taken the lead in generating this research, often in areas where government data is absent or incomplete.

The Centre for Victimological Research and Victim Assistance (CVRVA) at RV University, inaugurated in 2022, was established precisely to address the gap between research and practice in victim services. It conducts studies, organises training programmes, and builds awareness on victimology and victim justice. Academics associated with the centre have delivered research lectures on secondary victimisation, human trafficking, and rehabilitation, directly informing practitioners who work with victims on the ground.

Similarly, organisations like SNEHA (Society for Nutrition, Education and Health Action) in Mumbai conduct community-based research on violence against women, particularly in urban informal settlements. SNEHA’s counselling centres analysed records from over 2,278 women clients in a single year to document what survivors needed: crisis intervention, police support, legal input, and psychological care. This kind of empirical documentation directly shapes how service providers design support systems.

Documentation also serves a critical accountability function. U.S. State Department human rights reports consistently note that CSOs and NGOs in India play a key role in drawing public attention to abuses, recording violations, and pressuring state institutions to act – even in hostile operating environments where government cooperation is often withheld.

Direct victim support: crisis intervention, legal aid, and counselling 🔗

Perhaps the most visible function of CSOs is providing direct support to victims. This includes operating helplines, running shelter homes, offering free legal aid, and providing psychological counselling – services the state either does not provide or delivers inadequately.

SNEHA, working primarily with survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault in Mumbai’s low-income communities, provides a full spectrum of support: crisis intervention, referrals to police and legal services, and medical and psychological follow-up. Its approach – community outreach, regular dialogue with local leaders, police, and legal advisers – demonstrates how an effective CSO works not in isolation but as a coordinator across institutions.

The UNODC Victim Support Project in India partnered with several NGOs to pilot high-quality, victim-centred initiatives across the country. These sub-projects offered emotional and practical support, elementary legal aid, short-term counselling, and referrals, with activities ranging from establishing shelters for trafficking victims to conducting legal training for police and judiciary staff. The model demonstrated how civil society, when adequately resourced and coordinated, can develop replicable best practices for victim services.

Rehabilitation and reintegration: the long road to recovery 🔗

Supporting a victim does not end with immediate crisis intervention or a successful legal case. Rehabilitation – the process of helping a victim rebuild their life economically, psychologically, and socially – requires sustained, specialised effort. This is where Indian CSOs have made some of their most significant contributions.

Prajwala, founded in 1996 in Hyderabad by Sunitha Krishnan and Brother Jose Vetticatil, is one of the most prominent examples. Operating on five pillars – prevention, rescue, rehabilitation, reintegration, and advocacy – Prajwala works with victims of sex trafficking and sexual assault. It runs seventeen transition centres for children of women in prostitution, crisis counselling centres within police stations, and a therapeutic shelter home for trafficked women and children, many of whom are HIV positive. Prajwala has rescued over 24,000 women and girls and facilitated their journey toward recovery, providing skill development, legal support, psychological rehabilitation, and civic identity documentation so survivors can reintegrate into mainstream society.

Critically, Prajwala also established a survivors’ network called Aparajitha – a peer support system run by and for survivors themselves. With 70% of its staff being survivors, Prajwala exemplifies the principle that the most effective rehabilitation is often led by those with lived experience of victimisation.

Snehalaya, founded in 1989 in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, similarly provides emergency safe houses, education for children of survivors, healthcare, and long-term rehabilitation support for women affected by domestic violence, sexual abuse, and trafficking.

Filling the gap where the law falls short 🔗

A recurring theme across CSO work in India is the need to compensate for structural weaknesses in the formal legal framework. India’s criminal justice system, even after significant reforms like the introduction of Section 357 CrPC (now replaced by Section 395 BNSS) on victim compensation, and the NALSA Victim Compensation Scheme, still leaves many victims without adequate relief. Compensation orders are rarely passed proactively, legal aid reaches few, and secondary victimisation – where the process of seeking justice causes further trauma – remains common.

CSOs step into these gaps in several ways. They accompany victims to police stations and courts to prevent hostile treatment. They help victims navigate compensation applications under state schemes. They provide psycho-social support during protracted trials. And through advocacy, they push for systemic reform so that future victims need fewer workarounds. Organisations working on anti-trafficking have successfully influenced state-level policy: in 2003, Prajwala’s advocacy led the Andhra Pradesh government to pass a formal policy on rescue and rehabilitation of trafficking victims.

Challenges facing CSOs in India 🔗

Despite their contributions, CSOs in India operate under significant constraints. Regulatory challenges – particularly around foreign funding under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) – have restricted the financial capacity of many organisations. U.S. State Department reports have flagged that India’s legal framework has at times imposed overly restrictive laws on NGO operations, and that government officials have rarely cooperated with human rights-focused CSOs. Activists working on sensitive issues – trafficking, custodial violence, communal riots – have reported harassment and intimidation.

There are also internal challenges: funding cycles that prioritise short-term deliverables over sustained rehabilitation work, shortage of trained staff, and the difficulty of coordinating across state boundaries in a country as large and diverse as India. Critically, the gap between research and practice remains significant – what academic victimologists study and what grassroots workers implement are not always well connected.

The way forward: institutional collaboration 🔗

The most effective models of victim support in India involve CSOs working in close coordination with police, courts, medical institutions, and government welfare schemes – not as adversaries but as partners. The UNODC-supported projects, for instance, embedded NGO counsellors within police stations and integrated victim services with law enforcement protocols. SNEHA maintains regular dialogue with police and legal advisers as part of its programme design. These models demonstrate that civil society is most powerful not when it operates in parallel to the state but when it holds the state accountable while collaborating on implementation.

Looking ahead, there is a strong case for formal mechanisms that institutionalise CSO involvement in victim support – from mandated referral pathways between police and NGOs, to CSO representation in district-level victim compensation committees, to state funding for community-based rehabilitation programmes. The World Society of Victimology and its affiliated bodies globally recognise that victim services cannot rest on the goodwill of individual organisations alone; they require systemic integration.

What do you think? Given that CSOs often provide services the state cannot or does not – from trauma counselling to long-term rehabilitation – should their role be formally recognised and funded within India’s criminal justice framework? And when government cooperation with human rights-focused CSOs remains inconsistent, how do we ensure that victims in conflict-affected regions or marginalised communities receive the same quality of support as those in urban centres?

References

1. https://ijirl.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/CONCEPT-OF-VICTIMOLOGY-IN-INDIAN-CRIMINAL-JUSTICE-ADMINISTRATION.pdf
2. https://www.unafei.or.jp/publications/pdf/RS_No81/No81_11VE_Chockalingam.pdf
3. https://www.socialforaction.com/blog/top-human-rights-ngo-in-india/
4. https://rvu.edu.in/centre-for-victimological-research-victim-assistance/
5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK602234/
6. https://www.state.gov/reports/2023-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/india/
7. https://www.unodc.org/pdf/india/htvs/victim_support.pdf
8. https://www.prajwalaindia.com/about
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prajwala
10. https://give.do/discover/X18/prajwala-a-society-for-poor-and-deprived/
11. https://give.do/blog/10-ngos-helping-victims-of-violence-against-women-fight-back/
12. https://lex-localis.org/index.php/LexLocalis/article/download/802601/2830/26030
13. https://www.state.gov/reports/2021-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/india/
14. https://www.worldsocietyofvictimology.org/