Women’s safety - a large chunk of people in West Bengal ‘highly concerned’ when a female family member steps out alone

By: Team India Tracker

According to the Cvoter’s survey, the fear around women’s safety does reflect the politics of the respondent. BJP supporting respondents were almost twice as likely to fear a female family member stepping out alone than the ruling Trinamool Congress.

The aftermath of the RG Kar Medical college rape and murder case has reignited the old debate on women’s safety in public places 12 years after the 2012 Nirbhaya rape-murder case protests. According to the data of the CVoter a large number of voters in West Bengal are ‘highly concerned’ when a female family member steps out alone.  

The survey was conducted over 1,220 respondents in West Bengal via Computer Assisted Telephonic Conversation (CATI) there from 27-28 August. According to the survey, across all political spectrum, people in the state are highly concerned when a female family member steps out alone. 

According to the CVoter’s survey, the fear around women’s safety does reflect the politics of the respondent. BJP supporting respondents were almost twice as likely to fear a female family member stepping out alone than the ruling Trinamool Congress. 

According to the survey, nearly 44% of the BJP supporting respondents said they were ‘highly’ concerned, followed by 39.6% supporters of other parties. Nearly 30% of the INDI Alliance supporting respondents and 24% of the ruling All India Trinamool Congress supporters (AITC) showed this level of concern. 

In fact, slightly more AITC supporters feel very confident that nothing will happen to their female family members while stepping out alone, than any other political group. About 24.3% AITC supporters felt highly confident of women’s safety, only 14% BJP, 16% INDI Alliance and 17% of the other parties’ supporting respondents felt this confidence.  

A large chunk of people in the state feel that post Nirbhaya, the situation of women’s safety has not improved, but it also hasn’t worsened at the same time.  

When asked if India has become safer after the 2012 Nirbhaya case following harsher punishments, nearly 30% BJP supporting respondents said “there has been no improvement”, 37.2% INDI Alliance voters and 23.5% AITC supporters felt the same.  

Across the board, there were less than 5% respondents who believed the situation had worsened after the implementation of the stricter laws, except AITC with 5.3% respondents agreeing to the same.