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Vanvasi Chetna Ashram (VCA) is an organization that provides legal aid and succour to the victims of Salwa Judum, security forces and Maoist violence. VCA renders inavaluable service by documenting instances of severe human rights violations. Since most victims of violence are too traumatized and too afraid to file complaints against the perpetrators, VCA performs the crucial function of helping the victims file not only First Information Reports (FIRs) which are a necessary first step for delivering justice, but all through the long and arduous judicial process. VCA has been working for the welfare of the adivasi (indigenous) people of south Bastar (Chhattisgarh, central India) since 1992. They have worked in areas such as rights awareness and advocacy, conflict mitigation, community health awareness and monitoring, universalization of elementary education, natural resource management and hygiene and sanitation, in remote regions of Chhattisgarh that severely lack access to basic public services. Since 2005,they have also called for government accountability and social justice in light of the violence against adivasis and their forced displacement from their villages by the state-sponsored militia Salwa Judum in Dantewada and Bijapur districts. Their stand against the violence by Salwa Judum and security forces has invited the ire of the state which has used the flimsiest of excuses to revoke VCA's FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) permit. On 17th May 2009, when the rest of India was riveted by the news of general elections, the state police demolished the premises of VCA. VCA is one of the few community organizations engaged in resettlement and rehabilitation of displaced adivasis by organizing individual and community support under very adverse conditions. See here for a list of villagers supported by the VCA in their quest for justice.
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Background 
