These days we often come across news regarding the harassment of women. Many steps are being taken to put an end to this harassment of women. In many buses also many female passengers find it difficult because of harassment. Sometimes women find it hard to locate an all-women police station to file a complaint about harassment. The latest news is to make the Chennai city safer for women the state government is planning to install panic buttons in the public buses. There would also be an increase in the all-women police stations.
It is known that an amount of Rs 425 crores Nirbaya funds has been allotted to Chennai city and this is as a part of Safe City project of the central government. The above mentioned two projects like installing panic buttons in buses plus increasing all-women police stations would be taken up by with this 425 crores Nirbaya funds. It is said that these projects would be implemented over a 3 year time period.
As per a senior official of the corporation, once the state government releases the funds then detailed project report or DPR would be prepared. He spoke about the civic body that is showing more interest in these two projects after multiple consultations with the Chennai city police and with the social welfare department. The official later explained about the harassment of women on public transport and how this was a harsh reality. To increase the reporting of crimes, the accessibility to the all-women police stations could be improved. This was confirmed by the official.
To increase the women police patrols in Chennai and to provide rest- rooms for the women police the funds would be used. Under the aegis of the State Social Welfare Department, there are plans to institute a designated helpline for harassment and distress complaints. One important point is for sensitising school kids to gender equality and ways to ward off sexual predators, the inception report has proposed considerable allotment of the funds. These steps are praised by many social activists now and it is said that these steps are long overdue in the right direction.
Crisis shelters are very important for those women who walk out of their homes to avoid getting harassed and crises shelters were proposed in the city of Ahmedabad is known. It is revealed that there were calls for crisis shelters to be set up in Chennai too. The co-founder of Chennai based NGO Banyan, Vaishnavi Jayakumar, expressed her views and spoke about the need for the crisis shelters for women community. She later explained the importance of making helplines accessible to women with speaking impairments. She finally spoke about how these women were worst affected by harassment and their inability to expose the harassers was taken advantage.