Gzb among districts with most women harassment complaints

Noida: Uttar Pradesh State Women Commission said Ghaziabad is among the districts that have a high number of women harassment cases. Vice-chairperson Sushma Singh

Noida: Uttar Pradesh State Women Commission said Ghaziabad is among the districts that have a high number of women harassment cases. Vice-chairperson Sushma Singh said the commission is soon going to identify the top 10 districts where the maximum number of complaints are registered.

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On Tuesday, Singh attended a session organised by the National Commission for Women (NCW) for all state representatives. In their discussions, it was found that UP was among the states with the maximum women harassment cases, alongside Bihar and Jharkhand.

Singh was asked by NCW to make a list of 10 districts which has the most number of such cases. Ghaziabad and Jhansi were among the top districts in UP.

“Uttar Pradesh has a huge population due to which the number of women harassment cases is also higher. We have been asked to identify 10 districts where a maximum of cases take place. We are yet to identify these districts but Ghaziabad, Jhansi and areas of eastern UP have a high number of such cases. In eastern UP, majority of complaints are related to dowry and domestic violence,” Singh said.

“Our new team of 28 members was constituted in August 2018. We have not been able to do the survey of all the 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh as we have been busy spreading awareness on various women issues and trying to understand the causes of different types of harassment. Different areas have different issues. We will now start the survey of all districts to get the exact number of such cases and identify the 10 problematic districts,” Singh said.

According to the women’s commission, availability of mobile phones has also led to increase in crime against women. “Mobile phones have played a vital role in increasing crimes against women. There are a lot of cases wherein married men are caught fooling around with women by pretending to be single or somebody else on social media platforms,” Singh said.

State women commission has also been asked to organise pride walks with banners/slogans/titles saying “Women have every right to walk at night”. The commission will also be focusing on encouraging victims of various crimes not to cover their faces to remove the stigma attached to sexual harassment and rape cases.

Singh is going to meet the Governor of Uttar Pradesh on Thursday to discuss women safety issues and to suggest that issues related to women and self-defence classes should be part of school curriculums.

“It is necessary to have specific classes wherein students are sensitised about problems faced by women which includes mensurational hygiene. There should be proper self-defence classes for girl students. Parents need to understand that a child learns his/her first lessons at home. In our society, boys grow up seeing domestic violence which makes them believe that it’s okay to misbehave or cheat or beat up a woman,” Singh said.