NEW DELHI: The report by the Thomson Reuters Foundation calling India the most unsafe country for women should trigger a host of measures by the government to stop violence against women, women's rights activists and Congress leader Priyanka Chaturvedi argued on Saturday. Mariam Dhawale, general secretary of All India Democratic Women's Association said that the report has highlighted what activists in India have been pointing out for long. "Since the report has come out there is a lot of debate going on around the issue of women safety and its a good thing. There is no denying that there is culture of violence against women in the country and no political party takes it seriously enough," said Dhawale at the discussion organised by Indian Women Press Crops in Delhi.
The government on Wednesday had dismissed the report titled 'The world's most unsafe countries for women 2018'-released a day earlier-- which held India as the most dangerous country for women saying that it is based on an opinion poll, rather than data. "Reuters has used a flawed methodology to arrive at this claim. The ranking is based on a perception poll based on responses to simply six questions. The results are not derived from any kind of data and are solely based on inherently subjective opinions," the Women and Child Development Ministry had said in a statement.
Chaturvedi, who is a Congress spokesperson said that outright rejection of the report by the WCD ministry and the National Commission for women is "unfortunate and myopic."
"At a time when political parties are investing heavily into image management, why is a report based on perception survey being rejected? Why should a government why away from how the world is looking at your country?", asked Chaturvedi. Indu Agnihotri, director of Centre for Women's Development Studies however said that the report smacks of usual Western bias against India and expressed serious reservations against its findings. "Even though we are concerned out women safety in India which is getting worse the report is an outcome of a survey that does not appeared to be carried out scientifically and needs to be examined," she said.