Last night when I was travelling back to my destination from metro, I sensed that a many curious pairs of eyes were on me. It felt eerie. It’s no secret that increasing cases of violence against women has restricted our free movement in public places.
Ashwini Syed, a Training Manager with Safecity, Maharashtra, tells us about this unique platform which is working toward addressing the issue of safety.
Ashwini has an impressive list of work experience. She has trained pilots and cabin crew on safety and emergency procedures, in Jet Airways for 15 years. She has also trained ground personnel on Ramp and AirSide safety. Apart from that she’s a mother of 2 young children and is passionate about gender equality and sensitivity.
What is Safecity?
Safecity is a platform that crowdsources personal stories of sexual harassment and abuse in public spaces. This data which may be anonymous, gets aggregated as hot spots on a map indicating trends at a local level. The idea is to make this data useful for individuals, local communities and local administration to identify factors that cause behaviour that leads to violence and work on strategies for solutions.
In a nutshell, Safecity aims to make cities safer by encouraging equal access to public spaces for everyone especially women, through the use of crowdsourced data, community engagement and institutional accountability.
How can we bring out women to report cases of abuse & harassment?
UN Women states that 1 in 3 women face some kind of sexual assault at least once in their lifetime. But in our experience, the statistic in India seems to be extremely high. A rape occurs every 20 minutes in a day of India.
Most women and girls do not talk about this abuse for a multiple of reasons - fear of society, culture, victim blaming, fear of police, tedious formal procedures etc. As a result women are silent and this data is not captured anywhere but the perpetrator gets bolder over time and we accept it as part of our daily routine. This leads to under reporting of the issue. If there are poor official statistics, the problem is not visible, hence it is not a true representation of the actual problem. Therefore we need to break our silence and document every instance of harassment and abuse in public spaces so that we can find the most effective solutions at the neighbourhood level.
How does victim blaming stop women from taking action against the perpetrators?
Victim blaming is rampant in our society. Victims are sometimes made to feel obligated to let go of a “small incident” keeping larger interests in mind. When this attitude is adopted by an organisation’s leadership or the managers, it encourages rampant sexual harassment and legally the organization itself and directors can be held complicit in the criminal conspiracy to allow sexual harassment in the workplace. It is hence very important to clearly take a zero tolerance stance from a management point of view towards sexual harassment.
While almost everyone understands that sexual assault is a crime, sexual harassment may take place in subtle, non-violent ways that nonetheless creates a hostile work environment for women. Women often do not know what exactly qualify as sexual harassment when it is not outright assault, and fail to report the same.
Why do women hesitate in reporting cases of abuse and harassment?
Employees in India are usually unaware of their rights and duties and they get intimidated by the possibility that their complaint will be found false due to lack of evidence; especially when it is just their word against the perpetrator’s words. Even the newly enacted anti-sexual harassment law has penal provisions for false and frivolous complaints, which may deter genuine victims from coming forward.
Employers are responsible for creating an environment where sexual harassment is not tolerated under any circumstances, and promoting transparency amongst employees with respect to this. It is also the duty of the employer to actively create awareness about rights and duties amongst employees and sensitize both men and women about sexual harassment prevention.
What steps should be taken by an organisation to enable a safe work environment?
The newly enacted anti-sexual harassment law requires that every employer, no matter whether for-profit or non-profit organisations, requires to set up an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) consisting of two female employees and at least one external expert in every branch or office having more than 9 employees of any gender. The employer is also required to prominently display a notice informing the employees about the committee and who the members are so that they can approach the committee in case they want to register a complaint.
Also, it is the duty of the employer to provide psychological counselling to an employee who claims to have been subjected to sexual harassment for free.
Additionally, the employers are also required to conduct periodic workshops to sensitize all the employees about their rights and duties with respect to sexual harassment. Also have zero tolerance for sexual harassment.
Prevention of sexual harassment begins with the creation of internal processes by which employees can report to their employer
What is the law in place to tackle with sexual harassment cases?
The Ministry of Law and Justice has published The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act and Rules 2013: An act to provide protection against sexual harassment of women at workplace and for the prevention and redressal of complaints of sexual harassment and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. "Sexual harassment includes any one or more of the following unwelcome acts or behaviour (whether directly or by implication) as: (a) physical contact and advances; (b) a demand or request for sexual favours; (c) sexually-coloured remarks; (d) showing pornography; (e) any other unwelcome physical, verbal or nonverbal conduct of sexual nature.