Women’s Safety App launched in Delhi- WhyPoll

A few months ago whilst trawling the malls of South Delhi, I met a group of women inside Saket Mall who were raising support for their campaign to Fight Back against sexual violence in Delhi. I belong to a few different women and social groups that work to bring attention to the issue of keeping women safe in India, so I was pleased to make contact with these women and to answer their questions about The Unsafe Streets of Delhi as opposed to the places where I felt safe. Earlier this year an English local newspaper published statistics under the headline: Shame on Delhi Men.“The dazzling streets of Delhi hide a dark truth,” it said, publishing the results of a poll revealing that 66% of the capital’s women were molested between two and five times last year and that 70% of men “looked the other way” when it happened. What happens when they don’t was amply demonstrated earlier this year when a 55-year-old rickshaw driver in West Delhi was beaten to death for “defending his daughter’s modesty” from a group of drunks.

After signing the petition, we talked about strategies for keeping safe on the streets and how the cell phone had become a woman’s life line on the street. If you see a woman alone in Delhi she will invariably be talking on her cell phone or have the thing in her hand. It’s a signal to would be nuisances that I am not alone and that I have people to ring. In rickshaws, I always make a point of either texting or ringing someone to say I am in an auto and on my way.

“FightBack“ an innovative smartphone app is a brilliant response from the people at Whypoll. This app will allows women to send SOS message via SMS, e-mail and Facebook with the press of a single key. lt will function as an SOS alert device — sending out a text message with a GPS location to up to five people, including police, and as a post on Facebook and Twitter. This app will be available to download from the Whypoll website for a small fee and will be supported by a range of smart phones such as Nokia and BlackBerry. Currently available to Delhi users at Rs 100 a year and will be launched for nine mores cities in following year. The app is designed to work with Nokia, Samsung, HTC and BlackBerry smartphones. It presently supporting the English language, but in near future it will add the support for the  other languages (Indian languages).

To download the app, simply go to the Fight Back website, linked here.