HYDERABAD: So, what is it about our public transport that women find unsafe? According to the study, the main thing the girls surveyed were concerned about was lewd comments being passed, inappropriate touching and stalking. “Even if grown up women like us stand in, say, a bus stop at late night, people comment on us. They think just being a woman makes us qualified to attract unwanted comments,” said Tripurana Venkata Ratnam. The findings of the report also point to gaps in the current infrastructures in public transports. Measures like reserved seats for women are clearly not enough to mitigate the problem. The study also found differences in what men and parents think are unsafe for girls and what girls themselves think when it comes to safety.
For instance, only 28% of adolescent boys thought it was unsafe for women to venture out alone. Also, boys thought the most unsafe space for girls were the streets,markets and schools/colleges. For parents the most unsafe was also the streets, market place and public gathering, indicating the large divide in what the girls and those around her feel. Also a whooping 45% of boys also thought women’s most important task was to sit at home and raise a family, which maybe the reason why public spaces are made to feel very dangerous to young girls.
Meanwhile, TSRTC officials say that they urge the girls to speak up and report instances.
“From an organisation perspective, we are doing all we can to make our girls feel safe, we have incorporated partition in buses to segregate the women’s section. Also recently we had a massive sensitization program for all our drivers and conductors.
Beyond this we are also trying to take every complaint seriously, we recently suspended a conductor for misbehaving with a girl. It really needs is to break the culture of silence and raise our voice,” said Sudha Parimala, TSRTC.