Goa (Technical/Vocational Training to Sex Workers and Sexually Abused Women) Scheme, 2013 (PRABHAT)

What is the PRABHAT scheme in Goa?

PRABHAT is the working name of the Goa (Technical/Vocational Training to Sex Workers and Sexually Abused Women) Scheme, 2013, run by the Directorate of Women and Child Development, Government of Goa. According to the Directorate's citizen charter, the objective of the scheme is to provide technical and vocational training to sex workers and sexually abused women to enable them to earn a livelihood through that training and skill.

The word "prabhat" means dawn, and the scheme is built around a specific moment. The point at which a woman leaves commercial sexual exploitation. That moment is where support usually collapses. A woman who has been rescued has no income, often no identity papers, frequently untreated illness, sometimes children out of school, and no realistic path into work. PRABHAT addresses that gap by combining a short cash bridge with training, counselling, health care and education, and by attaching a named officer, a Probation Officer or Mentor, to the case.

The scheme is deliberately wider than its title suggests. Vocational training is the headline, but the substantive commitments in the scheme cover a monthly stipend, education up to Standard XII for the woman and separately for her children, counselling, and a defined route into government health services including ART and DOTS.

Who is eligible for PRABHAT?

You can be supported under PRABHAT if:

• You are a woman or child who is a victim of commercial sexual exploitation. Both are named in the eligibility conditions.
• You either reside in Goa or are a native of Goa.
• You are residing in Goa at the time of availing the benefit. The scheme states this separately from the nativity condition.

An important point of reach: the place of commercial sexual exploitation is not a criterion for eligibility. Women and girls from Goa who were commercially sexually exploited outside Goa also qualify. A Goan woman trafficked to another state and returned home is within the scheme.

You are not eligible for the monthly stipend if:

• You are housed in a Protective Home. The scheme's stipend clause expressly excludes victims in a Protective Home, because their maintenance is already being met. Other components of the scheme: counselling, health services and education support for children, are not framed with that exclusion.
• You are neither resident in Goa nor a native of Goa.
• You are not residing in Goa at the time of claiming, since the scheme requires residence in the state to avail the benefit.

The scheme carries no income test, no caste condition and no educational qualification. Victim status, and the connection to Goa, are the whole of the eligibility.

What benefits does PRABHAT provide?

Monthly stipend. A victim of commercial sexual exploitation, excluding those housed in a Protective Home, is provided a stipend of Rs 2,500 per month after rescue or exit from commercial sexual exploitation. The stipend is paid for a period of three months, or until she joins a livelihood programme, whichever is earlier.

Education for the victim. A victim who is interested in pursuing her education is supported up to Standard XII. All expenses related to her education, boarding, travel, fees, books and toiletries may be paid through the corpus fund created under clause 17 of the scheme, subject to the recommendations of the Monitoring Committee.

Counselling. The victim is provided counselling by a Probation Officer, by a person appointed as a "Mentor", or by a professional counsellor or psychiatrist working in a government or non-government organisation. Expenses for fees, travel and medicine are met through the corpus fund.

Health services. The victim is provided health services for all kinds of ailments at the government hospital. Victims suffering from HIV or tuberculosis are connected to the ART and DOTS programmes. A victim suffering from AIDS who requires institutional care is admitted to one of the care centres meant for people with HIV or AIDS for a period of six months.

Support for the victim's children. The children of a trafficked victim are provided counselling and assistance for admission to school by the Probation Officer or the appointed Mentor. All expenses related to the education of the children: boarding, travel, fees, books, toiletries — up to Standard XII are met through the corpus fund.

How to apply for PRABHAT

1. Make contact with the Directorate of Women and Child Development, at Old Education Department Building, 2nd Floor, 18th June Road, Panaji, Goa 403001, on 0832-2235308 or 0832-2426112, or through its help desk on 0832-2231499.
2. Ask for the Probation Officer or for the officer handling the PRABHAT scheme. The Probation Officer and the appointed Mentor are the officers the scheme names for counselling and for arranging children's school admissions, and they are the practical entry point into the scheme.
3. Establish the connection to Goa, residence in Goa, or Goan nativity together with current residence in the state.
4. Establish the date of rescue or exit from commercial sexual exploitation, since the three-month stipend runs from that point.
5. Open or nominate a bank account for the stipend, with help from the Probation Officer where identity documents are missing.
6. State what you want from the scheme. The vocational training route, the education route up to Standard XII, or both, so the Monitoring Committee can consider the corpus fund expenditure.
7. Raise your children's schooling at the same meeting. The children's education support is a separate entitlement under the scheme and is arranged by the Probation Officer or Mentor.

Rescued women are usually brought into contact with the Directorate through the police, a shelter home or a non-government organisation working on anti-trafficking, and approaching through any of those routes reaches the same officers.

How is the money released and monitored?

The stipend is paid month by month for up to three months. The other heads of expenditure; education for the victim, education for her children, counselling fees, travel and medicine; are met from the corpus fund created under clause 17 of the scheme, and the citizen charter records that this expenditure is subject to the recommendations of the Monitoring Committee.

That is a meaningful structural point. The stipend is close to automatic once eligibility is established, while the corpus-fund expenditure is case-by-case and runs through a committee. A woman planning her schooling or her children's schooling around the scheme should expect a committee decision rather than a counter transaction.

Why do PRABHAT claims run into difficulty?

• Housed in a Protective Home, which excludes the applicant from the monthly stipend specifically.
• No documentary anchor to Goa. Residence or nativity must be established, and women returning from exploitation outside the state often have no papers at all, which is where the Probation Officer's help matters.
• Date of rescue or exit not on record, so the three-month stipend window cannot be fixed.
• No bank account. The stipend needs somewhere to be paid.
• Corpus fund proposals without a Monitoring Committee recommendation, which is a required step for education and counselling expenditure.
• The three-month window closing because the woman joins a livelihood programme, which ends the stipend by design even though it is a good outcome.

Where do I get help or complain?

The Directorate of Women and Child Development is at Old Education Department Building, 2nd Floor, 18th June Road, Panaji, Goa 403001. Its phone numbers are 0832-2235308 and 0832-2426112, its help desk is 0832-2231499, its email is dir-wcd.goa@nic.in and its website is dwcd.goa.gov.in.

The Directorate also operates Child Development Project Officers at the taluka level and lists district-level offices in its citizen charter, so a woman outside Panaji does not need to travel to the capital to make first contact.

A grievance about the handling of a case may also be registered against the department through the Government of Goa's citizen services portal at goaonline.gov.in.

Practical advice

• Ask for the Probation Officer by title. The scheme is written around that officer, and a request routed through a general counter is slower.
• Do not wait for the training to be arranged before claiming the stipend. The stipend runs from rescue or exit, and delay simply eats into the three months.
• Raise the children's schooling in the first meeting, not later. School admission has its own calendar, and the corpus fund route needs committee clearance.
• Take the health linkage seriously. ART and DOTS enrolment through the scheme is free and continuous, and it is far easier to arrange while a Probation Officer is actively on the case.
• Women in Goa should also know about the Directorate's Swawlambhan grant to Mahila Mandals and Women's Self Help Groups, which sanctions annual grants of Rs 20,000 to registered groups and can support a collective livelihood after the PRABHAT training ends.

How to check your application status

PRABHAT has no online tracking portal and no application reference number in the usual sense, because a case is opened by the Directorate of Women and Child Development the moment a woman is identified as a victim of commercial sexual exploitation rather than through a form submission that then sits in a queue. Checking status means following up with the people actually handling the case:

1. Go back to the same Probation Officer or Mentor who took up the case. They hold the file and know exactly which stage each benefit is at: whether the stipend has started, whether the corpus fund proposal for education or counselling has gone to the Monitoring Committee, and whether it has been cleared.
2. Call the Directorate of Women and Child Development directly on 0832-2235308 or 0832-2426112 if the Probation Officer is not reachable, and quote the woman's name, the taluka, and the approximate date of rescue or exit. The Directorate's help desk, 0832-2231499, can also redirect a status query to the right officer.
3. Ask specifically about the stipend cycle. Since the Rs 2,500 monthly stipend runs for a fixed three-month window from the date of rescue or exit, a missed monthly payment is worth flagging immediately rather than waiting, because the window itself does not pause for administrative delay.
4. Ask separately about the corpus fund request if education, boarding, travel or counselling expenses have been claimed. These go through the Monitoring Committee rather than being paid automatically like the stipend, so the honest answer to "has it been approved" may be "still with the committee," and that is a different status from the stipend being paid.
5. Use the district or taluka-level Child Development Project Officer where the case originated outside Panaji, since the Directorate's citizen charter lists these offices precisely so a woman does not have to travel to the capital to check on her own case.
6. Escalate through the state citizen services portal, goaonline.gov.in, if the officer route stalls. A grievance logged there against the Directorate creates a written record of the delay, which is useful if a stipend payment or a corpus fund decision is taking noticeably longer than the case timeline should allow.

Because PRABHAT is worked case by case through a named officer rather than through a portal, the single most effective status check is a direct, repeated conversation with that officer rather than a written enquiry, and it is reasonable to ask for a rough date by which the next stipend payment or the Monitoring Committee's decision is expected.