Women seeking safety while commuting: Undemocratic city design of Delhi

Women seeking safety while commuting: Undemocratic city design of Delhi

Yastika Sharma, Bidhu Khanna, Aditi Singh, Swastika Ojha

Department of Geography

Indraprastha College for Women, DU

ABSTRACT

Indian constitution is trying to give equal rights and representation to every section of society since 1950 but failed which is noticeable through atrocities against women in public sphere. Cities like Delhi though promise many opportunities but somewhat are biased against women in the context of design and planning. There have been efforts by the government to make commuting for women a safer experience but all those initiatives either lack in their reform or in proper implementation. The commutation period that women choose, the mode of travel they use and all other insights reflects how well city has been successful in creating inclusive public space for women – how democratic it has been in taking in its ambit all the hardships that women face while commuting and all those indicators which would contribute in creating safer place and thus reinforcing greater participation of women in decision making. This means that a lot of factors are there to be considered for designing a safe and inclusive city. The study is conducted to get an insight of women’s design of a democratic space that illuminates more women in public space and greater say in the space morphology. The study also addresses the experiences of women and their perception of safe spaces. For the purpose, secondary sources like articles and reports from newspaper and magazines and government organizations and primary sources like interview and street auditing is used.

KEYWORDS: women’s safety, civilian rights, democratic space, experience

INTRODUCTION

Delhi is consistently registering highest rate of total cognizable crimes against women amongst major metropolitan cities in India. Women safety concerns in contemporary public spaces of Delhi have been discussed and debated on several platforms, but the problem still seems unnerved. According to a 2014 Thomson Reuters Foundation survey of some of the world’s largest cities, Delhi is one of cities having the most dangerous transportation system for women. In past, several studies were carried out on the necessity of female safety in public spaces, the need for safe mobility for women, and how safe mobility is related with the right to live as an equal citizen in any city. Pan India study conducted by Bhatt, 2015 found that in India where 5.5 million women enter the workforce each year, more than 50% express high concerns about the safety of their commute. This highlights that women safety is not made a part of the city planning process of public transport systems in urban centres. This limits the women’s educational and occupational choices and they are forced to live in a city that has been planned without taking their concerns in mind. It is often found that women prefer to choose a college in the bottom half of the quality ladder over a better college due to lack of safety in the route to those better-quality colleges (Borker, 2017). Generally, women experience higher level of fear of crime in comparison with men as cities are mainly planned for men and doesn’t work properly for women. Therefore, it is important to consider women’s concerns and perspectives and bring it to the design process. Of course, what works for women works for men as well but not the other way around (Dastgheib, May, 2018). According to a report by National Democratic Institute at the socio-cultural level, the representation by the media of women in leadership, still tends to focus on what they wear, their marital status or their voices, as opposed to their policy positions or competence, therefore the existing literature shows that a nation cannot be considered truly democratic if a particular section of the population faces extreme inequalities in access to urbanized spaces unlike the other section. There is a need for women to reclaim their spaces in public transport systems and spaces, and become a part of the conversation regarding their own safety while commuting and accessing urban environments.

METHODOLOGY

The study includes both the primary and secondary data. Primary data collection was done through online questionnaire-based survey and personal interviews of focus groups (parents, academicians and college students). Participants of the online survey include 210 women from 11 different colleges in the age bracket of 18-21 years. Likert scale was used for scaling the responses in the survey for research. Secondary data were collected from different government reports and newspaper articles as well as data from National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB). A separate offline survey on the impact of the latest Delhi Governments Free ride scheme for women in DTC buses has been conducted, along with a street audit to map the specific vulnerable spots on the streets of Civil lines, New Delhi.

EXPERIENCES OF WOMEN IN PUBLIC SPACES

Figure 1: District-wise crime against Women scenario, NCT Delhi, 2014

(Data source- NCRB,2014)

This section explains the spatial and temporal relationship with reference to the commuting experience of women, travelling via various public transport options, and their immediate response to such undesirable situations. Time and duration of travel play an important role in determining major aspects of the commuting experience of women in general. Regarding the most unsafe time to travel when they feel most vulnerable, 81 % of the respondents agreed that post 9 PM time frame is most unsafe for commuting. The reasons cited by them mainly directs towards the poor public infrastructures.

86% of the respondents commute daily by public transports like bus, metro, auto, rickshaw, cabs. 71 % amongst these women prefer commuting via Metro, as it is considered the safest option. Remaining 29% respondents feel that buses, autos, and cabs are vulnerable as here the period of commuting is unpredictable, which depends on the behaviour of the driver and traffic congestion. The report by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) pointed out that there is a shortage of 5,000-10,000 buses.

Initiatives like installation of Panic button is suffering a major setback as it has been proved worthless by the data that 91% of the respondents do not know the correct location of Panic button in a bus. This behests towards the need of smart city designing where there are adequate resources to advertise about the facilities being availed by governments.

ANALYSING THE CITY DESIGN THROUGH STREET AUDIT

The Delhi Declaration on Women’s Safety (2010) states “Violence against women and girls constitutes a human rights violation and continues to be an obstacle to reaching gender equality and equity, peace, and sustainable development; Women’s diverse experiences of city life are affected by gender-based discrimination and abuse in public and private spaces, including exclusion from political and socio-economic participation, as well as limited access to essential services and infrastructure. Women’s and girls’ right to the city includes the right to live free from violence and fear, in more equitable, democratic, and inclusive cities. Women and girls have the right to participate and be part of decision-making processes in local governance, urban planning, and management.” The Right to City has been denied to women which is visible through the vulnerabilities of women on streets, and public spaces at any time of the day. 

To understand the challenges women experience on the streets, a street audit of 800 m long stretch, Shankracharya Marg (A) and Ramkishore Marg(B) inside a civil lines residential colony was conducted to gauge the dynamism of the experiences in terms of various indicators pre-selected for the study like – Street lighting, Condition of pavements, Speed breakers, Residential gates (considering the surveillance), CCTV (working or not, private or government), Footfalls, Condition of road (disable friendly or otherwise), Resting places, and Maps/Direction boards for navigation.

Map source- Google Maps

The number of working street lights on Street A was seven and on street B was eighteen and four and two streets light was not in working condition respectively in both streets. Poorly lit streets are considered as crime hub as the criminal can take ill-advantage of the dark spots.

 Pavements in street A were encroached by parked vehicles, Flower pots etc. which reduced the walking space making it more vulnerable for physical attack. Street B did not have any pavement. Besides, surprisingly both streets do not have any Speed breaker which means the street designing is openly welcoming high-speeded vehicles to physically assault a woman on road. Also, very few residential gates were manned with security, and lacked surveillance on both Street A and B.

However, sixteen in number and in proper working condition, the installed CCTVs were privately owned on both the streets. Street A has generally high footfalls at all intersections, with moderate footfall on Street B and despite the satisfactory condition of road on both streets, requirement of navigation maps and sign boards can be felt while commuting in the time when the roads are almost barren. With no resting places and no disable friendly paths, many loopholes came out through the street audit with abandoned properties, lack of police presence, and deserted patches in between houses, that created an overall bleak atmosphere for women safety.

The number of street lights and condition and width of pavements are directly related to free movement of women. In absence of “eyes” on streets i.e. people (footfall), CCTVs and street lights women can feel her freedom of movement being breached. Even the length of walls of residential housing matters because the lower walls ensure more eyes on the roads. All this point towards a need for more democratic design of such spaces.

A SECURITY SCAN OF DELHI GOVERNMENT’S FREE RIDERSHIP SCHEME

Delhi Government’s Free Ridership Scheme for women which was launched on 29 October 2019 was intended to give safety, security and accessibility to women in Delhi. A survey through interviews was conducted to analyse the difference (if any) to which 13 women regular commuters of DTC buses responded who are availing the benefits of the scheme. Majority of them agreed that this has increased the frequency of women in the DTC buses besides 38% of them said that they themselves had started travelling more using buses. It indicates that crowd had increased which is mainly comprising of women that is making few of them to feel safe and for others it’s not related to safety anyways but on the contrary they believe that the congestion caused is making them more uncomfortable as boys now keep on hooting creating a vile environment. However, their preference is always bus, metro is the second resort witnessing the new problem, congestion in the buses. Besides this, all of respondents were unable to relate it to the economic gap between men and women but all agreed that this scheme has increased the mobility of women from lower income groups and motivated them to come out of their homes.

Encroachment of reserved seats by males is nothing new. The respondents were reluctant to take action if the seat is occupied by elderly people out of courtesy while if the seat is occupied by younger males few try to vacate seats on their own while many, out of fear, don’t ask them to vacate and are of the view that they should understand and vacate the seat voluntarily. According to them the idea of bus marshal is quite successful as almost all the buses have marshals now but male marshal are lacking behind to provide their service as against the female marshals and the reason cited by some of them is that men doesn’t listen to male marshal or male marshal don’t try to insist upon them in issues like occupation of reserved seats.

Sustainability and success of the scheme is still bothering people as negative attitude of drivers i.e. not stopping the bus for females is the new problem confronting the women that is because of lack of welcoming attitude of men towards the scheme. The question of sustainability is still under suspense as respondents believe that the they have to pay the cost in any form i.e. taxes, making them to believe that providing freebies is not a solution.

CONCLUSION

City Design and urban planning does not only include the roads, drains or the transit means but it includes designing of the spaces in such a way that they can serve their purpose democratically. What we are seeing today are the urban spaces created by men and for men which ignores every assertion of the existence of other genders in the city. The studies clearly show that height of walls, street lights, width of pavements, number of breakers, CCTVs, footfall and even the presence of vendors are affecting the security of women in public spaces. Metro is considered safest among all but it is supplemented by lack of last mile connectivity making our streets the breeding grounds for crime.

The reason behind this is surely lack of women representation in the city planning sector along with lack of mechanisms such as feedbacks that can help make the city design better. Safetipin has started with such an initiative but it is scope is limited looking at the situation of Delhi.

Democracy can not only be ensured by 33% representation of women in local governments. What is required it a Democratic space where equal number of women can be noticed enjoying their Right to City.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank all the participants of the survey for their valuable insights. We also thank Dr. Babli Moitra Saraf, Principal, Indraprastha College for Women for her encouragement and support.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest is reported by the authors.

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