Public discourse

Two instances of trust deficit during the COVID-19 pandemic reveal that trust-building is a process based on past experiences of people, built through engagement with institutions and service providers over a longer period. First, it is in the context of accessing treatment in the midst of inadequate access to healthcare, and second, about vaccine hesitancy. There is a need to acknowledge the role of public trust for effective public health practice, especially when the science behind the programme is intellectually arduous for the common public.

This paper is based on a participatory research study that sought to explore the dynamics of community-based responses to domestic violence across five sites in India. The study was intended to provide documentation of how women-led innovative responses have emerged, how they operate, and how successful they are in addressing the needs of women subject to domestic violence. Community responses to violence can open democratic forms of dispute resolution and to operationalise an objective process through a feminist perspective, incorporating a strong element of preventive justice.