GHMC polls: Have parties forgotten about women safety?

HYDERABAD: IT was only a year ago that Hyderabad had made headlines for the gruesome rape and murder of 27-year-old Disha on November 27.  Regardless, efforts to improve safety for women find little mention in the manifestos presented by various political parties ahead of the GHMC elections. Ironically, 50 per cent of the seats in the civic body are reserved for women.

While the TRS manifesto focuses primarily on its previous policies for women, including She Teams, She Cabs, schemes for maternal health, CCTV boost and others, the BJP manifesto merely offers free bus and metro rides for women. The Congress manifesto, meanwhile, proposes the involvement of Residential Welfare Associations (RWA) in the installation of CCTV cameras in colonies, in addition to an increase in number of She Team personnel/deployment.

However, experts say that keeping the street safe and empowering ward committees in tackling issues of sexual harassment and domestic violence are crucial at the municipality level. These measures find no mention in the manifestos of leading parties.

Speaking to Express, Pratyusha Sharma, joint secretary of Women’s Forum, Society for Cyberabad Security Council (SCSC), says, “There is a lot of opportunity in improving the governance of hostels in the city. At the SCSC, in addition to law and order police, we have audited several women and students to ensure that utmost priority is given to women safety. The GHMC could scale these up.” 

She further said that the corporation could put more thought into scaling up the ‘safe street project’ undertaken in the West Zone by the SCSC, wherein women could report badly illuminated streets and get them rectified to prevent opportunities for harassment.Experts also say that the manifestos lack plans for post-lockdown rehabilitation for working-class women, many of whom — especially above the age of 45 — have lost their jobs.

“Political parties could have envisioned how to empower working-class women in the GHMC limits. So many domestic helps and labourers have lost their jobs. The parties could have set aside funds as loans for these women, or launch a scheme to support self-entrepreneurship so they can restart their lives. There is no support given to working-class women from the GHMC, despite the 50 per cent reservation for women,” said Dr Sr Lissy Joseph, Director of National Domestic Workers Movement.