Nearly four out of five women (79 per cent) in India have experienced some form of harassment or violence in public, according to latest research by ActionAid UK released today to mark the International Safe Cities for Women Day.
A YouGov poll that surveyed 2,500 women aged 16 and over in major cities across India, Brazil, Thailand and the UK, found that in India 84 per cent of the women who experienced harassment were in the age group of 25 years to 35 years and 82 per cent of them were full time workers and 68 per cent were students.
"Shockingly, the vast majority of women across the globe have experienced violence in a city with 89 per cent of women in Brazil, 86 per cent in Thailand and 75 per cent in the UK subject to harassment or violence on the streets of their cities.
"The research highlighted that across the four countries, it was the poorest women who were most at risk with women in the lowest social economic groups most likely to experience violence or harassment in cities," it said
Over a third of women (39 per cent) in India have been groped or touched in public, compared with two in five (41 per cent) of women in Brazil, 44 per cent in Thailand and 23 per cent in the UK.
The research asked women when they felt most at risk in their cities or towns and found more women in the UK (43 per cent), Brazil (70 per cent) and Thailand (62 per cent) felt at risk on the streets of their cities, whereas in India women felt more at risk on public transport (65 per cent).
"Safety of women is directly related to patriarchal mind sets that manifests itself in streets, homes and workplaces. Beti Zindabad, a campaign for gender equality supported by ActionAid and several networks and organisations seeks to challenge these mind sets. The fear of harassment and violence has a crippling effect on women's abilities and potential, and in itself it is an attack on women's rights," Sehjo Singh, Director, Programmes and Policy, ActionAid India said.
