Vinay Maheshwari

Founded in 1992 as a pioneering organisation working for Gender Equality & Responsible Sexuality in India, Sakshi is the force behind the first test-case litigation against Child Sexual Abuse in India and the force behind two landmark PILs – ‘Vishaka & Others Vs. State of Rajasthan’ & ‘Sakshi Vs. Union of India’ which informed several gender-based laws, including POSH (Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace, Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal Act 2013) and POCSO (Protection of Children Against Sexual Offences Amendment Act 2019). Following the formation of the laws, in order to address the bias in interpretation by the Judiciary, Sakshi spearheaded the Asia Pacific Advisory Forum for Judicial Education on Gender Equality for the Judiciary of 5 countries of the Region; India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh & Sri Lanka. The 10 Year programme was eventually institutionalised and came to be recognised as a ‘Best Practice’ Model by UNIFEM (UN Women) In the last decade, through its flagship programmes, The Rakshin Project & SBOX Sakshi has been working to build access to justice by informing and educating the citizens about the law reforms, and their rights. With a clear focus on attitudinal shifts for strengthening a culture of accountability, Sakshi has led several Campaigns, Social Arts and Communication for Development (C4D) initiatives to mainstream difficult conversations and build empathetic communities.