More than half of India feels concerned when a female family member goes out alone: Survey

By: Team CVoter

This level of concern on women’s safety has to be read with the fact that a large share of Indians feel that Post Nirbhaya, there has been little to no change in women’s safety.

The RG Kar Medical college gangrape-murder case in West Bengal has revived the conversations on women’s safety in India 12 years after the country mass protested during the Nirbhaya gangrape-murder case. In media both national and international, rapes and sexual assault cases continue to tarnish the brand India’s image.  

The situation is so bad that more than half of the countries ‘feels concerned’ when a female member of the family steps out. According to the latest CVoter survey conducted over 3,000 respondents across India (including 1,471 female respondents), when asked “How do you feel when a female family member of yours goes out alone?”, barely 12.4% women and 16% men said they felt ‘quite comfortable’ about their safety.  

About 34% women and 28.6% men said they were ‘quite concerned’ about their safety when they themselves or a female member of the family steps out alone. Another 30% men and women were somewhat concerned about the safety. 

Some pocket gadgets like pepper spray or other devices do come in handy when women face miscreants, however, according to the CVoter survey, a very small proportion of women carry it with themselves.  

When asked “Do you or your female family members or acquaintances keep some safety equipment in your bags for such emergencies? (Like pepper spray or sharpened objects)”, only 21% women said yes, about 12.6% male members knew about their female family members carrying it. About 61% women and men said no – they don’t carry such tools. There was also a large share of undecided ones – 17% female and 23% male respondents didn’t have any say on this.  

This level of concern on women’s safety has to be read with the fact that a large share of Indians feel that Post Nirbhaya, there has been little to no change in women’s safety. 

When asked, “Do you think that India has become safer for women after the enactment of stricter laws following the 2012 Nirbhaya case”, more than 50% of the respondents believed there wasn’t an improvement in women’s safety measures.