We want a day when such initiatives should not be the need of the hour,” Rashmi Singh, Project Guide, CLAPP, said
Dr Craig L Dicker, Minister Counselor for Public Affairs, US Embassy, New Delhi, along with M.O.P. Vaishnav College for Women principal, Lalitha Balakrishnan giving away the kits to CLAPP volunteers in the city on Tuesday. (Photo: DC)
Chennai: “They poke us on Facebook continuously,” a young girl mentions in a documentary about the harassment women face daily apart from leering, stalking and flashing.
The documentary was an apt curtain raiser for the launch of the community policing initiative by the International Foundation for Crime Prevention and Victim Care (PCVC) at a city college on Tuesday.
Named Community Led Action Program with Police (CLAPP), the initiative is to reduce sexual harassment and gender-based violence against women and girls at public places and is supported by Chennai Police and US Consulates General, Chennai and Hyderabad.
“We want a day when such initiatives should not be the need of the hour,” Rashmi Singh, Project Guide, CLAPP, said. Since police are the first respondents to any incident of crime, the key objective is to deepen the understanding and heighten the sensitivity of police to local issues of sexual harassment and also get the youth to raise their voice against it, she said.
“Sexual harassment and gender violence by no means should be called an Indian problem. This happens to women around the world, and in my country as well,” said Ariel H. Pollock, Public Affairs Officer, US Consulate, Chennai. The city police have been dedicating efforts to address the issue, said Shyamal Devi, Additional Deputy Commissioner. “There are separate teams to attend to child abuse and woman harassment complaints in all 35 All Women Police stations in the city,” she said.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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