Every now and then I'm reminded that where I've moved is not as safe as I was (despite the Wire and the murder rates in Baltimore). Yesterday I received an email from the State Department that stated the following:
According to press reports and local police authorities an explosion occurred in Varanasi at the Dashashwamedh Ghat near the Vishwanath Temple at around 6:30 this evening. Media reports indicate 20-25 people were injured including a number of foreigners with one fatality. Police are on high alert across India. At this time, the motive for the attack is not known.
Varanasi is a very well known tourist destination and in fact my friends were there this past weekend. Thankfully before the attack.
As close to home, so to speak was a gang rape that was widely reported in the Delhi papers. A young lady who works for an outsourcing organization was gang raped after she was dropped off after work.
The way that most outsourcing organizations, including mine, operate is that the employees are provided with a group taxi service that picks them up for work and drops them off afterwards. In some instances you are dropped off at your front door, in others, at some distance from there. This particular young lady was dropped off about 100m from her home. Apparently the men had learned her schedule and had been watching her for some time. They kidnapped her from the drop site, drove her away in a van and raped her. Luckily she has survived and is fighting back.
These things don't happen often but they do happen. Vigilance is necessary so now, if any of our female lawyers need to stay late to get a deliverable out, first we need to discourage it, if we there is no other alternative we stay with them until they are finished, we put them in the cab to go home, they have to have someone receive them at their destination (most of the women do not live alone so this hasn't been an issue so far), they are dropped off at their front door and they must call us when they arrive.
One of the lawyers in my group remarked that sometimes it is as though if you are a young woman and you are out by yourself at night, it is like an invitation to be harassed. There's a lot wrong with that. Not only does it feel like it blames the woman, but it restricts her freedom. Not to mention her safety. In a way, it can also act to restrict her ability to get ahead. If you are prohibited from staying late at work, does this mean you get less difficult projects?
While safety issues are paramount and trump all else, how do you balance the other interests and freedoms that are being impinged upon?
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