New Delhi: Debates over the safety of women have kicked up a dust, but done little to ensure their security, students and professionals say, stressing nothing has changed in the national capital after the 2012 brutal gangrape that briefly sparked some soul-searching and led to a new law.
Delhi reported 15,319 cases of crimes against women in 2014, 17,222 in 2015 and 15,310 in 2016, data collected by the National Crime Records Bureau stated.
It won the dubious sobriquet of the “national capital of rape” when the city registered the maximum number of 1,996 rape cases in the country in 2016, up from 1,893 in 2015.
But women stressed that little had changed since people came out to the streets in protest against the rape and death of a paramedical intern in 2012.
“Ask any girl, and she would tell you what happens with us daily in public spaces. People stare at our body, they wrongly brush past us, we are subjected to abuse and we get intimidated,” said a 23-year-old MA student, who did not wish to be identified.
These violations occurred in places that ranged from Metro rains and DTC buses to shopping malls and colleges, she said. And they took place on social media sites.
“I was even threatened on FB for not reciprocating to somebody’s sexual advances.”
“Nothing has changed after six years. The only change, perhaps, is that the situation has worsened,” said the postgraduate student, advocating death penalty for rapists.
