Google – AFP, Ammu Kannampilly (AFP), 21 January 2013
 |
Female
commuters are pictured on October 2, 2010 boarding a women-only
compartment at
a New Delhi train station (AFP/File, Prakash Singh)
|
NEW DELHI —
On a wintry evening in Delhi, beautician Geeta Misarvan leaves work, steeling
herself for a long wait until a bus arrives, and with it the dreaded prospect
of being groped by strangers during the ride home.
"Once
a guy sees you travelling alone, he will come and stand right behind you. Then,
he will lean in and press his body against yours and try to touch you,"
Misarvan said, describing an ordeal endured daily by many women in urban India.
In Delhi's
crowded coaches, where men easily outnumber women, the sense of hostility and
fear is particularly palpable in the wake of the widely-discussed gang-rape and
murder of a young student on a moving bus in the city last month.
"It's
terrifying," Misarvan told AFP. "Sometimes I just lose it and ask the
guy to stand properly but then he just yells at you, telling you to shut up.
"It's
upsetting, but what more can I do? If the guy gets even more aggressive or
violent, no one on that bus is going to help me... so I just put up with it and
wait for my bus stop," she said.
Once
34-year-old Misarvan steps off the bus, she hunts for an auto-rickshaw,
three-wheeled vehicles which are cheaper than taxis, since it's too dark and
unsafe to make the 35-minute walk alone to her house.
On most
evenings it takes her 90 minutes to arrive home from work.
India's
expanding economy has seen unprecedented numbers of women join the workforce,
but their emergence has been accompanied by growing threats to their security.
Like many
working women, Poonam, a 21-year-old barista at an upmarket coffee shop in the
capital, often stays late serving customers and says her parents fret nonstop
about her comings and goings, calling her every night.
"I try
to get an auto-rickshaw (home) because it's safer but the drivers haggle for
double pay and I can't always afford it. So I end up waiting late at night for
the bus, which never arrives on time," she told AFP.
Once on
board, Poonam, who declined to give her surname, says that sexual harassment is
a constant risk.
"There's
nothing you can do about it, if you tell your family, chances are they will
just tell you to stay home," she said.
India's
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that economic progress is impossible
without the "active participation" of women, but there are signs that
the Delhi gang-rape case has led some to turn their backs on the workplace.
A survey by
industry group ASSOCHAM published this month showed a 40 per cent fall in the
productivity of female employees at call centres and IT firms in the country
because many had reduced their hours or had quit their jobs.
Insensitive
comments from politicians implying women are to blame for sexual assaults and
clumsy "safety tips" from police have only fuelled anger among
commuters.
A Delhi
Police advisory posted on its official website suggests that women should
"turn off" prospective attackers by vomiting or "acting
crazy".
Just days
after the December 16 gang-rape, K.P. Raghuvanshi, a senior police officer in
Mumbai told female college students to carry a packet of chilli powder with
them always and use it when threatened, the Press Trust of India reported.
While
trains in Mumbai and Delhi run segregated women-only coaches in response to the
high incidence of sexual harassment, many have now called for more vigilance by
authorities and frequent police checks.
 |
Commuters
queue for an overcrowded train at a railway station in New Delhi
on July 11,
2009 (AFP/File, Manan Vatsyayana)
|
Police and
prosecutors have outlined how the student and her male companion struggled to
find transport to go home and so agreed to climb aboard the bus driven by the
rapists.
The group
allegedly beat up the man and repeatedly raped and assaulted the victim with a
rusting metal bar in the back of the bus while driving around Delhi for some 45
minutes. Five adults were due to go on trial on Monday on charges of rape and
murder in connection with the attack.
Since the
attack, beautician Misarvan, who often boarded similar privately-run buses to
visit her widowed mother in west Delhi, says she is too afraid to keep doing so
and now spends more to take an auto-rickshaw instead.
Like her
other female colleagues, she tries to leave work as early as possible and
expresses no faith in the Indian police's ability to protect her.
"Nowhere
in this country is safe," says the mother of two, the first woman in her
family to have a job.
"I
worry a lot about my daughter growing up here, whether she will have to endure
the same problems, the same risks that I deal with every time I leave my house,"
she added.
Related Articles:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.