{"id":11104,"date":"2011-11-07T18:11:24","date_gmt":"2011-11-07T18:11:24","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-11-07T18:11:53","modified_gmt":"2011-11-07T18:11:53","slug":"Using-Crowdsourcing-app-to-Fight-Crimes-Against-Women-in-India","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=11104","title":{"rendered":"Using Crowdsourcing app to Fight Crimes Against Women in India"},"content":{"rendered":"

For many women who live here, the list of Delhi\u2019s \u201c100 Most Unsafe Places,\u201d recently compiled by Whypoll, a citizens\u2019 networking group, resonates with unpleasant associations. Dhaula Kuan, the neighborhood at the top of the rankings, is where, in 2010, a young call-center employee returning home from work was abducted and raped by a group of men in a car. In second place is Nelson Mandela Marg, the street where Sowmya Viswanathan, a journalist, was robbed, shot and killed by four men in 2009. The Ghitorni Metro Station is where, earlier this year, a woman was dragged out of her relatives\u2019 car and abducted by five men in another car after an argument between the two groups. When the government\u2019s National Crime Records Bureau released its 2010 crime statistics last month, few were surprised that, once again, Delhi ranked first in India for reported rapes. A heavy incidence of other crimes, like abductions and dowry-related murders, reinforces the widespread belief that the Indian capital can be hazardous for the average woman.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Now, Whypoll, which was founded in 2008 by two journalists, Hindol Sengupta and Shweta Punj, is taking action. Having mapped out Delhi\u2019s most dangerous sites from reports supplied by more than 50,000 citizens who shared women\u2019s experiences of harassment or violence, this month Whypoll is releasing India\u2019s first women\u2019s emergency mobile phone app. The FightBack app aims to give women the ability to report crimes and call for help across a variety of platforms, using social networks like Twitter and Facebook, as well as Whypoll\u2019s own site. \u201cWe both grew up in Delhi,\u201d said Ms. Punj, \u201cand violence against women is such an obvious, such a glaring problem. We felt there had to be a way to address the concerns of women better.\u201d <\/p>\n

It took a year to develop the FightBack app, which aims to address what many believe to be chronic under-reporting of crimes in the capital. For example, the National Commission for Women, a government agency, has recorded 526 complaints of harassment by women from Delhi so far this year that were not reported to the police, and it noted that complaints of police apathy were common. The Delhi Police Department has a dedicated Crimes Against Women section, which was set up in 1983, in response to the lack of training among personnel in handling crimes against women, as the former joint commissioner of the police, Kanwaljeet Deol, wrote. \u201cThe sensitiveness of the average police officer when dealing with a harassed and frightened woman left much to be desired,\u201d Ms. Deol wrote in a paper assessing general police conduct in 2005. Six years later, the special section seems to have made a difference, but many women remain reluctant to go to a police station, out of fear of the police or family pressure not to report crimes. This is where FightBack hopes to make a difference. \u201cThere is an absence of concrete data on crimes against women,\u201d said Mr. Sengupta, who believes that the availability of more information \u2014 about the nature of the violence women face and the locations where they are most likely to encounter it \u2014 is crucial to changing the situation. In its first year, the FightBack app will be a paid download, affordable at less than 100 rupees, or about $2, and will be in English, before being rolled out in Hindi and other Indian languages. \u201cWe thought about giving it away for free,\u201d said Ms. Punj. \u201cBut 100 rupees is a very small one-time fee, and Indians rarely respect free handouts. People will take it more seriously if they have to make a small investment.\u201d <\/p>\n

The FightBack app, currently being tested by small groups of users, allows women to report harassment or violence at different levels, whether lewd comments or physical assaults. The user can program up to five telephone numbers to whom a text message with GPS information will be sent in case of emergency. \u201cWe include the Delhi Police Helpline number as one of the possible numbers women might want to use on their short list,\u201d said Mr. Sengupta, \u201cand we are very interested in seeing how many women will choose this option.\u201d The idea of using crowdsourcing to tackle violence against women is gaining ground, in and outside India. Ms. Punj said that the Whypoll team was inspired by HarassMap in Egypt, which was started by Rebecca Chiao, a women\u2019s rights advocate who began working on a better way to report violence against women in 2008. In that year, the Egyptian Center for Women\u2019s Rights released findings of a study that 83 percent of Egyptian women had experienced sexual harassment. Like FightBack, HarassMap allows users to report street and sexual harassment across a variety of platforms, from text messages to Twitter to direct reports to its Web site.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

SOURCE<\/a>
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For many women who live here, the list of Delhi\u2019s \u201c100 Most Unsafe Places,\u201d recently compiled by Whypoll, a citizens\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":66637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/download-150x150.jpeg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/download-300x200.jpeg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/download-768x512.jpeg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/download.jpeg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/download.jpeg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/download.jpeg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/download-392x272.jpeg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/download-390x205.jpeg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/download-130x90.jpeg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/download-800x445.jpeg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/download-150x150.jpeg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/download-1024x600.jpeg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/download-1024x480.jpeg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/download-600x417.jpeg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/download-285x450.jpeg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/download-575x198.jpeg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Joshua","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/62ee23f8f40307578d1f284ecd823d77f32da8ea35541e7dbdafeb5da1a4e877?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"4","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"For many women who live here, the list of Delhi\u2019s \u201c100 Most Unsafe Places,\u201d recently compiled by Whypoll, a citizens\u2019","magazineBlocksPostCategories":[],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":187,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":4,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/download.jpeg",1024,683,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/download-300x200.jpeg",300,200,true],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/download-150x150.jpeg",150,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Joshua","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1213"},"magazine_blocks_comment":4,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/62ee23f8f40307578d1f284ecd823d77f32da8ea35541e7dbdafeb5da1a4e877?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/66637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}