Update (2006-11-06): Join the Safe Delhi Campaign at the Safe Delhi website
- Why are we concerned about women’s safety?
- Report of safe Delhi consultation
- What about safety in public spaces? [link to pdf]
- How to conduct safety audits
- www.metrac.org/index.htm
- Delhi Helpline Booklet [link to pdf]
Over the last few years, the issue of women’s safety has become a major focus of public attention and concern in Delhi. A significant proportion of the respondents in a Public Perception Survey conducted during the preparation of the Human Development Report for Delhi feel that the streets of Delhi are becoming more and more unsafe for women.
One does not need to look at the statistics collected by the National Crime Records Bureau to agree that women in Delhi face high levels of violence – even a random scan of the daily newspapers is enough to support this statement. Women are certainly unsafe on Delhi streets, running the daily risk of harassment, attack, assault, rape and murder. On the other hand, they do not seem to be very safe at home either – official statistics show that, in Delhi as elsewhere, most crimes against women are committed by close relatives within the four walls of the home… Click here for more.
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March 10th, 2006 at 10:23 am
i think to make delhi safe for women, it not just by giving women self defence training or provide pepper spray, but for it we’ve to change the mentality of our society who treats women as an object.
March 20th, 2006 at 5:06 pm
Hi,
Although i am an Afghan and living away from India but i feel there are some similarities amongst southasian or asian countries. Women in my country have been suffering for years and we lack professionals and advocates to fight for their rights. The gender advocates and women rights advocates have experienced in here that to make life easier for women is not only possible by educating women only about their rights and roles, but we need to raise awareness in the communities where we live. The more a woman knows about her right, she suffers voilence at her home because her husband , father or brother can not tolerate her defending her rights, unless that father, husband or brother is not aware of his wife and sister’s rights.
March 23rd, 2006 at 1:40 pm
i think we need to change the mentality of delhi’s peole. because over the last few days we saw the crime rate against the women is increasing day by day very rapidly. They even not think that the women is belonging to which age group. Every day the newspaper is full of the news of the rapes or the any other news related to the women. We want to change the mind set of socities men. and realised them that the women is not an object that they think. Its not a problem of a specific group of society. Even their is a more problem with the girls who is travelling in the public trasport. I m saying this because i deal it regularly. But i just want to tell all the women’s who is reading this mail, that its is not a matter of others its a matter of us, so be brave and give the response of these stupid things and don’t trust to anybody. trust only yrself. we need to raise awareness in the communities where we live and know more abt our rights. that’s the only solution, so that we can improve our position in society. HAME KHUD HI KUCH KERNA HOGA HAMARE LIYE.
March 26th, 2006 at 8:15 pm
The level of decency and maturity of a society/city can easily be gauged by the way it treats its women.I strongly feel that while there are many reasons/causes for the present state of affairs,for Delhi to become a safe place for its women folk three things need to be done on an urgent basis.
1.To instill the fear of law in the general public. There is no doubt that the people of Delhi consider law to be something that is harmless and that which can be bought easily.Only if there is a genuine fear of being caught and severly punished would the ruffians mend their ways.Though to expect this from the present police force(Which is highly corrupt and dangerously casual)is a big ask.
2.Till the time our so called seedhi sadhi janta continues to live with its “Chalta hai attitude” and not start objecting to all kinds of voilence against women may it be on the roads,at public places or within their colonies nothing much can be achieved. Only when the trouble shooter knows that it is not only the police force that he has to be scared of but also the person next door, he would continue making life miserable for all young women.
3. Last but certainly not the least the women folk themselves have to be extra vigilant and highly conscious of the fact that they are not safe anywhere anymore. They just cannot afford to be casual in their approach specially when out of their homes. Roads, public places, buses, the immediate surroundings of colleges,schools, institutes etc are all infested with these lusty creatures called the young Indians on the move.Unfortunately women need to apply their brains and use commonsense in almost everything that they do and remember that they are part of a very complexed and rustic society where expecting decency,civilised behaviour,an attitude towards safety,prevention and precaution is like asking for too much. It will certainly be a while before Delhi becomes safe and predictable for its women population, but certainly this would not be possible by overlooking the above mentioned suggestions.
Thanks
Rajesh Malhotra
April 4th, 2006 at 3:31 pm
Crimes against women will reduce only when parents take the issue seriously. Most parents when confronted by teachers regarding eve teasing by thier sons say boys will be boys and tend to condone the act of violence. this gives further impetus to the boys to misbehave as they begin to think that its a manly thing to do. Not just parents but even victims must not condone these acts of verbal abuse as they later degenerate into physical violence against women. To make delhi safe, this campaign must be taken to colleges and other educational institutes and children must be encluraged to help each other when unsavoury incidents like this arise.
April 5th, 2006 at 10:14 am
Crimes against women specially in Delhi is a very pertinent issue and all of us women,men policy makers , law makers infact any and everybody who is part of the society needs to recogonise and acknowledge this as a serious concern and issue and only then can we remedy this. the first step would be to create awareness and I feel that jagori is just the right forum to do do it. I work for an organisation that works on the issue of disability and I must share that it is doubly difficult for for women with disability as they are at a even greater risk. I would really love to a part of any activity etc initiated by JAGORI. looking foreward to greater parterships and a safer Delhi.
April 17th, 2006 at 9:33 am
Violence against women is a sign of oppression of women, and freedom of men to do as they please. I think that a major step to increase awareness is to educate girls in schools. Young girls may not discuss these things among each other, and therefore not have the courage or the right solution to tackle the problem.
Young women should be told how to (1) react when a man tries to molest (press too close against) a women in an overcrowded bus, (2) negotiate one’s way on a busy road/marketplace (3) raise an alarm without being embarrased and what language to use to put off an offender, (4) tackle a situation (cracking male-biased vulgar jokes) among friends that is directly or indirectly abusive for women and amusing for men (5) stop a family member involved in sexual misconduct.
We all talk of increasing awareness among young girls and women, and we know of the social taboos in talking about such things. Yet we do not take any steps to make aware these girls in schools or through mass media, which is a sureshot way of protecting the younger under 16 age group. And make them more confident, secure and fearless of their surroundings and settle for nothing less than a safe environment to live in.
April 17th, 2006 at 11:11 am
Hi all,
This is very good that we are working in the field to safe women from many factors. But i have some suggestion for the JAGORI that the issues given in the Safety Audit criteria are not only with the women these are also the factors with men. The men community is not much safe from all these factors. So i think(may be i am wrong) that we should concentrate to remove all factors which make women insecure(as well as men) with hte help of Govt. If govt. is not in position to resolve all these issues then why they are on the seat.
Men are termed as the strong community, but my studies on men and women says that men are less secure than women. Only thing they have is their EGO, nothing else.
Hope you will concentrate on my views and suggestion.
Regards,
Sehdev
May 13th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
hi!its good that many girls of today are learnig to protect themseleves. they will be able to protect themselves atleast for sometime .. but i feel for the small children ,who become the victims of the perversion . everyday in the newspaper we saw these type of incidents and my heart cries for them . i have tried to teach my small grand daughter how to protect herself from a bad man,if he attacks her . her action to show me how she will protect herself brings tears to my ears .how small and feeble the children are!how could a person do a crime on the small and weak creature ,dont understand!
how could it be stopped ,could you tell me?
May 13th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
i taught my small grand daughter how to fight a bad man ,if he attacks her , as everyday in the news paper we saw these type of incidents.
when she shows me how she will fight the bad man ,i found out it is not possible for a small child to fight a strong man . this feeling bring tears to my eyes. i feel how helpless are the small children ,who are molested and raped by the perverts.
May 18th, 2006 at 5:21 am
This is a terrific website! I just followed the link from the discussion for the world urban forum workshop on partnerships for gendered violence prevention
https://www.femmesetvilles.org/networks/
I will recommend it to others. Keep up the great work!
June 3rd, 2006 at 1:41 pm
I am a journalist, working with the digital edition of Hindustan Times. I would love to join this campaign having been eve-teased now and then ever since the age of, well, 12.
What disturbs me is the sheer feeling of being powerless after being eve-teased; whenever I complained to my folks that such-and-such incident happened to me, all I got to hear was that I should not have worn a tee-shirt and jeans which would emphasise my body (I am obese) so much.
I cannot believe that clothing is a trigger for men to eve-tease us. In fact, I would like to work on this problem - what causes men to eve-tease women? I feel that the problem can be tackled at its root only if it is defined completely.
I suggest that we teach women to hone their reflexes so much that if an eve-teasing incident happens with us, we are able to react then and there, whether it is grabbing and beating up the miscreant(s) or calling for help. We are usually too shell-shocked to do something about it.
I feel self-defence should be taught to girls everywhere, but that is only a short-term measure. The larger goal is to instil respect and courtesy in men that they do not treat women in such a way. How that can be accomplished, I do not quite know yet, but I would happily support any endeavour to ensure that such a thing does come about.
June 18th, 2006 at 9:45 am
Eve-teasing, Rape, Abuse, Molestation are not about how pretty you are or the kind of clothes you are wearing but it’s about POWER. Power to control, power over others, to enforce the existing notions.
Women need to challange that, before taking control of the society; changing their (scoiety) views, their notions, we need to change ours. We have to get out of the shell which we are hiding inside, we have to fight, challange at the smallest levels.
When an act of abuse is happening, women are generally not in a position to shout or act and this is what we need. We need to take charge and empower ourselves first.
It is difficult to break away but it has to happen.
July 26th, 2006 at 11:31 am
I have recently moved to Delhi, and am taking some time absorbing the social milieu where women are granted very little autonomous access to public space. My entire work/social life ( I don’t have a car) is manouevered around safety concerns taht arise out of this milieu. It almost feels like I have to explain myself everytime I step out of teh city.
I was wonering if a campaign could be worked on, whereby, large numbers of women gather at a public place at night and just ahng out, get into a bus at ten in the night or something.
I am lawyer so would be interested to know what is ahppening on the ‘women and law ‘ front.