Survey Finds Majority Of Delhi Women Fear Sexual Harassment In Public Places

November 17, 2009 11:07 a.m. EST

New Delhi, India (AHN) - Women in Delhi are not very confident of their safety outside of their homes. Around 96 percent women in Delhi feel unsafe according to a recent survey by an Indian NGO.

The survey was conducted by an NGO called the Centre for Equity and Inclusion (CEQUIN), as part of their "Make Delhi Safe For Women" campaign. According to the survey, 82 percent of women felt that bus is the most unsafe mode of transport in Delhi.

The NGO also released a report called the "Perception and Experience of Gendered Violations in Public Places of Delhi." It presents a detailed analysis of the nature and dimensions of gendered violence in public spaces in the capital.

The report was based on the survey which tabulated the responses of 630 women between the age of 12 and 55 living in New Delhi and Old Delhi across all socio economic classes.

More than 60 percent of women said that girls less than 10 years are most vulnerable, while 88 percent of women feel that when a women is harassed in a public place, she rarely or never gets any help from anyone.

Of the women who were interviewed only 19 percent felt that victims should report to the police while 44 percent of the abused respondents had chosen to remain silent after the incident. During the survey, CEQUIN also found out that most women chose to be silent because they felt ultimately they would be blamed somehow for the incident.

"One woman told us that she kept quiet because otherwise her parents would not allow her to go out," Lora Prabhu, co-founder of CEQUIN told AHN. "Another woman told us that if she talked about her sexual harassment, she would be told to change her dressing style so that she didn't attract male attention and so on."

Ninety-five percent of women admitted that their mobility was restricted because of fear of being harassed by men in public places.

Sara Pilot, co-founder, CEQUIN, said, "Our recently launched campaign 'Make Delhi Safe for Women' is in partnership with Delhi Government and aimed at creating awareness and facilitating a movement towards making Delhi safe for women. While preparing ourselves to be better in terms of infrastructure for the upcoming Commonwealth Games, it becomes extremely important for us to work towards making our city a safe one. This survey provides the much needed focus and direction with its alarming findings and enabling us to accordingly develop the remedial action points."

The "Make Delhi Safe for Women" campaign is aimed at men and boys and as Pilot said, the aim is to "encourage men and boys to respect women and be proactive in shunning all violence against women."

Prabhu said the survey was an attempt to quantify the amount of sexual harassment prevalent in society. "We were not surprised at the results of the survey. It was what we had expected."

"The range of the survey was to understand the whole range of the problem - from the serious to the not-so-serious sexual harassment like staring, eve teasing, brushing past deliberately and so on. We also tried to get a sense of how sexual harassment affects the life of a woman - like not wanting to stay out late, or not wearing certain kind of clothes or not allowing girls to play outside. These are the issues that are never quantified," Prabhu told AHN.