ATM Machine Helps Indian Women Quietly Report Rape Without Going To The Police

[Playinghardball]

n December, a 16-year-old girl in Calcutta was burned alive. Authorities believe she was targeted as punishment for reporting her gang-rape to the police. Two months earlier, on her way home from the police station after notifying cops about the six men who raped her, she was accosted and raped again. The next time the men came for her, they killed her. Her death sparked protests throughout India.

That’s the environment facing many Indian women, particularly in rural areas of the country, who attempt to press charges against their rapists and abusers. If they’re seeking to report members of their family or community, they can be threatened with death for going to the cops. And on top of that, many women don’t feel safe in police stations; the profession remains dominated by men, and women are often subject to sexual harassment if they walk into the station without being accompanied by a male relative.

But Joydeep Nayak, a senior member of the police force in India, is working to change that. Nayak developed an electronic kiosk resembling an ATM machine that allows women to discreetly log police reports in public places. The so-called “Instant Complaint Logging Internet Kiosk,” or “iClik,” has been installed in a bank in Bhubaneswar as part of a six-month pilot project to test the innovation.

“Women were being denied a fundamental right because of this fear of going to the police. Why should they need someone’s help to do something so basic?” Nayak pointed out in a recent interview with the Toronto Star.
To address that, his iClik system is designed to be accessible for all Indians, whether or not they’re literate. Users can enter their complaints by recording them, typing them, or scanning a piece of paper. The machine sends the files to the closet police station, and each woman receives a receipt with information about how to track the status of her complaint. So far, it seems to be working. The Toronto Star reports that about eight to ten women use the machine every day.

More here: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/08/27/3476172/atm-machine-india-rape/

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. kick

[cyberswede]

2. 8-10 women a day?

[BrotherIvan]

4. It's awful

But figuring out a way to help is definitely the answer. India has a looooooong way to go culturally before things will change. They still have the caste system which is not supposed to exist--I've seen it with my very own eyes. An upper class woman lives a very different life than a lower class one, almost like the Greeks and Romans where a woman could own property, be educated, and lived a life of relative freedom. Slaves and poor women definitely not. It's a huge country with a gigantic population and the countryside is nearly an age behind the cities, especially with Western influence. It's definitely the dark ages out there.

[pinto]

3. Great, innovative idea. (nt)