Women are subjected to verbal harassment more than physical harassment at the four major bus stands in Madurai city.
According to a report titled ‘Harassment faced by women commuters in four major bus stands’ brought out by the Centre for Women’s Studies at Lady Doak College, 24% of men leer at women by singing obscene or suggestive songs and 20.2% of men passed snide comments about women.
The report which surveyed a total of 2,880 respondents at Periyar Bus Stand, M.G.R. Bus Stand, Arapalayam Bus Stand and Thirumangalam Bus Stand, stated that at least 14% of the women commuters were physically harassed while travelling. A total of 1,451 women and 1,429 men took part in the survey which was conducted between the years 2017 and 2018.
A total of 44% of the men who took part in the survey said that college students were the perpetrators of the harassment.
Beulah JM Rajkumar, Advisor, Centre for Women’s Studies, Caroline Nesabai, Director, Centre for Women’s Studies and Ann Nirmala, Assistant Professor and Coordinator, Centre for Women’s Studies said that students of all disciplines took part in the survey.
J. Subashini, a final year student of the college, said that the need for the survey came about during a discussion about safety in public spaces. “A lot of our students use public transport every morning and see this as a daily problem. We found some astounding answers during the survey. Some men were completely insensitive,” she said.
Ms. Ann said that all respondents complained of having faced harassment. “Not one person said that they had not been gawked at. We also noticed that women faced safety-related issues through the day and not just during peak hours,” she pointed out.
She added that the survey proved that harassment has now become an intrinsic part of the society. “A total of 25.8% of girls say that they ignore the person/group and 21% said that they would avoid the area. One positive sign is that 20% of the respondents said that they would confront the perpetrator,” she said.