Women at a protest against increasing number of rapes in Delhi. File picture

New Delhi, Jan. 11: The unsafe tag refuses to leave Delhi.

According to a survey carried out by Jagori, a women’s organisation campaigning to make the capital safe, it continues to be unfriendly to women.

How vulnerable women here feel has been brought home to the organisation right at its doorstep. The road leading to Jagori’s office is pitch dark after sundown and packed with potholes. “We feel uneasy walking down this road after dark,” a member said.

The activists’ fear was mirrored in the responses they got from women across the capital, whom they interviewed over the past five months.

Regardless of the concern voiced in Parliament and public statements from policymakers and implementing agencies, the women chorused that Delhi continues to be unsafe.

Recent crime statistics show a 20 per cent increase in rape cases last year compared with 2004. According to a report of the Delhi Human Development, based on a survey of 14,000 people, 50 per cent of women feel unsafe in Delhi. As many as 90 per cent women feel uneasy using public transport and 45 per cent think they are unsafe in their places of work, it adds.

Jagori pointed to bad infrastructure, such as lack of streetlights and public toilets, and the attitude of bus conductors, drivers and young men as the major contributors to Delhi’s dubious reputation.

The organisation had conducted 22 safety audits in different parts of the city ? residential areas, markets, universities, railway stations and metro stations.

“A community safety audit is a process whereby a group of people (usually women or any other vulnerable group) walks through a space, particularly after dark, and assesses what makes the place unsafe and what changes can be made,” said a member of Jagori.

“What has emerged from the audits is that safety has to be addressed from different perspectives. First is the lack of or poorly designed and planned infrastructure. Second is the lack of support for women faced with sexual harassment from the police and law enforcement agencies,” explained another activist.

The third is the indifference of the public and the attitude that “women’s safety is their own problem”.

“It is not the women alone but also the physically disabled like the blind who are unsafe walking down unpaved streets, drilled with potholes,” said a member of Jagori.

During an interactive session with the organisation, Shalini Khanna of the National Association of the Blind said flyovers and roads are not built with the disabled in mind and most public transport is inaccessible to them.

Jagori has drawn into the dialogue various agencies, besides the police. For instance, the Residents’ Welfare Association has constituted a seven-member women’s task force to get its point of view in. “They have been very active and can make a lot of difference in making their localities safe,” said a member of Jagori.

Huge hoardings may be dotting the city, proclaiming Delhi police as friendly and sensitive, but the survey shows otherwise. It says one of the steps towards a safer capital is to make the police gender-sensitive and employ more women in the force. Delhi police have in the past organised gender-sensitisation classes for its staff.