Are women safe on the Indian streets? The ugly truth revealed by statistics. (1 of 5 on Sexual Harassment)

After the Guwahati incident, wherein a girl was sexually molested by around 30 men, I have been getting calls from concerned parents and IT/BPO companies which employ women;  all enquiring about self-defense courses.  Suddenly here was an ugly reminder of the safety of women on Indian streets. 
“Oh..come on..it’s the same all over the world. .tell me..if the girl is walking outside a bar at that time, what does she expect?!”  shrugged one middle aged man, while another waved the whole the thing away with a generic dismissal , “She is a victim of the angrezi pub culture”
But the truth is more ugly and accurate, as these facts below point out.
The security of woman in India is amongst the lowest, globally ( Source - http://www.womanstats.org)
World Woman self defense workshops, Chennai
The more startling fact is, even war-torn Somalia is rated a better country in terms of safety of women! India is at the bottom 4 along with Afghanistan, Congo and Pakistan. (Source -www.trust.org)
Crime against women - G20 countries - India low (Kravmaga Chennai)
crime against women statistics - G20 countries - India low at 19

In India , Andhra and Bengal seem to be the worst states for woman. All the inference drawn below are based on published reports of NCRB on “Crime against women”
A quick look of the molestation and eve-teasing statistics of the top metros, reveal Chennai is comparatively a safer city for women.
Eve-teasing & molestation in Indian metros - Chennai OK
Molestation & Eve- teasing - Indian metros - statistics

In total numbers, the predictable bad-boy is of course Delhi, followed by Mumbai.  But the ugly story is revealed in the smaller cities like Bhopal, Indore, Lucknow and especially Vijayawada.
What’s wrong with small town India?!

Sexual harassment high in II tier towns of India
The summary of the pathetic India story on “crime against women” is captured by the graph below.
In 10 years since 2000, the total incidents of crime has grown 50 fold! If one tries to blame this on the burgeoning population, its futile; because the figure on the rate of crime against woman (number of incidents in a lakh of population) also shows a steady upward slant. 30 times increase in 10 years!
Today Crime against women cases form 10% of the total IPC cases in India !
Crime against women increasing in India

What is to be done to improve the safety of Indian women?
I am not a social scientist to understand the implications and extrapolate on the catalysts of this trend of Crime against women in India. But there is no ambiguity in the simple fact that security of women in India is abysmal.
This ‘crime against woman ‘situation cannot be improved in a short duration; due to various cultural, economic and social factors. Like the ingrained patriarchal mind-set, the economic dependency, increasing alcohol consumption, wave of migrant labourers in big cities, the clash of cultural values due to a media explosion within 2 decades. The list can go on.
Education is better than Policing for “crime against women”
I feel the change will be more enduring if it’s inculcated from bottom up. Values and social mores are imbibed at an early age.  It’s very tough to change social values after a certain age.
Policing and law-enforcement can at the best act as deterrents. But their resources are already stretched thin. The best bet is education. If the man vs woman equations are spelt out clearly at a very young age, probably in 2 or 3 generation cycles we can see a significant change is the safety of women on the Indian streets.
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SreeRam is a KravMaga self-defence instructor at Chennai, South India. He teaches Civilians, Chennai City Police and Security. 
SreeRam has started W.A.H.R (Women against harassment & Rape) an NGO devoted to increase personal safety awareness amongst women and equip them to handle sexual harassment at public and work places.
SreeRam conducts KravMaga personal safety and self-defense workshops at corporates, especially IT/BPO companies where many women work late. He has also conducted workshops, for rural women.
On 8th March 2012 ( International Women's Day) KravMaga SreeRam released a small handy booklet for women titled " 10A-s of Personal Safety for Women" 
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Related links -  
" 10A-s of Personal Safety for Women" - Part I & Part II
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Mobile - 0-934 000 66 00 , Email - kravmaga.chennai@gmail.com 
Chennai Site - https://sites.google.com/site/kravmagachennai/
KRAVMAGA BLOG -  http://kravmaga-chennai.blogspot.com/
LINKED IN -  http://in.linkedin.com/in/ksr960
FACEBOOK - http://bit.ly/KravMagaChennai
YOUTUBE - http://www.youtube.com/user/KravMagaSreeRam
GOOGLE PROFILE - http://www.google.com/profiles/ksr960
TWEET - @kravMagaSreeRam



Comments

  1. UmanandTripathiFebruary 9, 2017 at 8:49 AM

    if a women or girl carry a gun in her bag then she will safe on any street in the world not only in India...So girl should start protecting herself....don't depend on other....this is the only way

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