According to a survey by UK-based NGO, ActionAid, around three-fourth (73%) of women in India have experienced some form of violence or harassment in the last month. More than two in five women have been groped in public.
Other findings show how common it is for women to feel the need to take measures in their daily lives against the threat of harassment. More than 8 in 10 women in India said they regularly take measures to protect themselves.
In fact, a study by a Michigan State University criminologist on crime in India showed that 33 percent of women restrict they are going out in public and 17 percent have quit their jobs in the fear of sexual harassment.
These statistics are horrifying. It is a violation of basic human rights to have to stay indoors because of fear of someone harassing you outside. Why are the numbers this shocking?
Our findings have shown that some of the many factors affecting how safe pedestrians feel, and are, in public spaces are lighting, gender diversity and openness. Women feel unsafe in a place without other women, devoid of adequate lighting, or a desolate place with no other pedestrians in sight.
This clearly shows that a huge part of the problem is the infrastructure and society around us. There are two actionable parts to this. The first is taking measures like improving public transport, lighting, security, and the works to reduce the instances of crime. It is fairly easy to identify these factors.
The second is measures to improve the feeling of personal safety. In the past, we have identified several factors affecting safety objectively, but when it comes to the feeling of safety, what matters to one person may be very different from what matters to another. This is why we want to know what matters to you.
Introducing, the “Pick a Pic” project; fun and easy to get involved in, with potentially far reaching impacts. All you have to do is choose which picture out of two places you would feel safer in. We have launched this project to transform a mundane data collection exercise into a fun, interactive tool which will take less than a minute to contribute to!
Everyone knows about swiping right on Tinder. Well, think of this as a modified, safety-tinder, whose data will help make the world a better place!
The data we get will be analyzed to pick out which factors matter the most to the public. We will then talk to local authorities about these problems and issues.
We already proved that we are capable of taking concrete action when we identified the lack of functional street lights as a problem in New Delhi and convinced the government to promise us the lighting up over 7000 dark spots.
We want to know what you all want the next street lights to be.
Come and join us in our endeavor to make your cities safer and smarter!
All you need to do is go to our website (www.safetipin.com/pickAPic) and click on the safer of two images.