Help Is Just A Phone Call Away...

Srikara Dattatreya

As I begin writing this post, I am at a stage of near burn-out. By this moment, 3:38 PM on 29th May 2026, I have responded to about 35 calls from women in distress, starting from 10:30 AM. My mind is abuzz, heavy and giddy with stories of domestic violence, struggles to survive, summons from the police station, and abandonment of family by the husband. At this point of time, I have developed an aversion to the ring tone of the office phone, and I flinch each time it rings.

According to the National Family Health Survey, 2019-2024, 32% of married women have been victims of spousal abuse. Only 14% of women who have been victims of physical or sexual violence have ever sought help to stop the violence. According to data from the National Crime Records Bureau of 2024, 3,51,021 Crimes Against Women were recorded. Of these, 1,20,227 cases of cruelty by husband or his relatives were reported.

Every day, when I respond to phone calls, a part of the work I do as the Operations Manager of Dhwani Legal Trust, the above numbers acquire their own unique lives and stories. They are not mere numbers and statistics. Each of these numbers is a story of struggle, vivid in the details of the inhumanity inflicted upon their protagonists.

Helplessness is the thin veil that is draped over all the callers, and it augments the coldness of the world they live in. Over the phone, women vent their angst at their predicament to us, desperately hoping that we could be of some succour. We, in turn, point them towards the courts, and assure them that we will try our best to ensure that justice is served to them. Unfortunately, this justice is far from being served on the platter. Miniscule crumbs of it are served, and the years go by as the litigants wait to have their fill. “My husband comes home drunk every night and abuses me.”; “My children’s school fee is due and the husband refuses to pay.”; “My husband hasn’t brought any provisions home. What will my children and I eat?”; “My husband has filed a case with the police against me, even though I am the victim of his indiscriminate abuse.”; “My husband has dragged my kids away from me.”; “My husband is stalking and harassing me on the street after I filed for divorce.”

Accosted by such an onslaught of cruelty, the veil of helplessness, often, drapes over us too. Yet, to the best extent that our limited resources allow us, we strive to leave no woman behind. We brainstorm, we discuss, we act, we stumble, we try our best, to assist the caller-help-seeker in the best way that the Law allows.

But there is also power in the phone call from Dhwani Legal Trust. Policemen lend an ear when we call in an attempt to mitigate the circumstances of the woman who is in their precinct. Abusive husbands get wary when they realise they have received a call from the backers of their victim-wife, whom they had assumed to be alone. Several repent their ways and come forward to settle - the brutality inflicted upon a person ceases with the effort of tapping numbers on a smartphone and a few choice words. And this is why I grab the phone the moment I step into the office, dial the first missed call and say, “This is Srikara from Dhwani Legal Trust. We seem to have missed your call. What is the issue and how can we be of help?”

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