Sexual harassment is a big problem in Kathmandu’s public transport or whatever passes for public transport in this city. I suppose when people travel cheek by jowl on our dark and often claustrophobic public transport system, there will always be a few who will look to take advantage of these conditions and harass commuters. A lot of us, rather surprisingly, seem to think this behavior is an outcome of the sexually repressed society that we live in. I beg to differ.
I’ve been unfortunate enough to have first-hand experiences of commuting crushes in different parts of the world – in China, India, the UK and various parts of Europe – and women all over, to some extent, face the same problem. Some of these countries are the most liberal in the world and almost all of them struggle with policing sexual harassment on public transportation. This type of behavior should not be attributed to sexual repression (god knows there are millions of ways to relieve sexual frustration) but should be seen for what it is – a crime of opportunity. And as long as those opportunities exist there will always be a few bad apples looking to exploit it.
And in Nepal, these opportunities are often presented on a silver platter to the perpetrators due to the confined conditions of our public transport and the never-ending greed of transport workers who believe in herding passengers into every available nook and cranny in the vehicle. This ensures that harassers are guaranteed close proximity to women and once you factor in our erratic driving and less than perfect roads, you have a situation wherein they, armed with a ready excuse, are emboldened into making ‘inadvertent’ moves and touches. In most cases all of these touches and moves make women unsure about whether it was done intentionally or otherwise, leading to uncertainty in confronting these people.
The Nepal Police has recently decided to tackle this problem and kicked off its three-month campaign against sexual harassment on public transport called – rather appropriately – ‘Safety Pin Campaign’. These stings and spot checks are always welcome and no doubt done with the best of intentions but with no coherent long-term vision or follow up, it will be limited to what it currently is – a one-off gimmick. Without tackling the conditions that give rise to this sort of behavior no amount of surprise checks is going to help and certainly not when you conduct these so called ‘stings’ during the least busiest times of the day.
A lot of people saw the video of undercover cops traveling on a bus and all it really proved was that Kathmandu’s buses are slightly less crowded during the day. But those are not even close to the conditions that people usually travel in. If the point of that video was to deter would be harassers – it should have been done during rush hour. There really is no point in taking a jolly ride on KTM’s buses during midday.
With the crush on our public transport almost impossible to police and deliberate contact even harder to prove, the police can instead focus on the conditions that embolden the perpetrators, for example policing the number of people allowed on public transport. While it may not be physically possible to count the passengers, a cursory look into buses or micros can at least ensure relief from overcrowding.
Why not focus also on commuter awareness and deterrence campaigns on the scale of ‘Ma Pa Se’ or lane discipline initiatives which are far more effective than sporadic sting operations? The people using public transport are either unaware of sexual harassment being a crime or see it as an inconvenience that must be put up with whilst commuting. I can barely hear any information about the Safety Pin campaign apart from the initial fanfare and that pointless video. An education campaign will probably involve the use of uncomfortable words, imagery or messages and I certainly hope it’s not our prudishness – as my friend suspects it is – that is getting in the way of educating people.
The awareness campaign can be made effective by urging women to file complaints (making it simple to do so or having a dedicated hotline) and also fining transport workers for overcrowding in their vehicles. Nothing will get those folks faster in a line than fines but with the many politicized unions and transport ‘entrepreneurs’ that is easier said than done.
A good solution would be to run women only buses at least during rush hour from 8:30 – 10:00 am in the mornings and between 5:00 – 6:30 pm in the evenings. Given the significant numbers of women commuters in the capital, profitability should not really be a concern (as was cited by the providers of the previously trialled initiative) for a couple of trips each way in the morning and evenings. While many see women only transports as a step backwards given that it helps women ‘avoid’ the harassment rather than stopping men from doing it in the first place, it is still a practical and immediate solution that has been trialled successfully in many countries.
As of now there are countless women who put up with this indignity on a daily basis and almost all women will have stories to tell of harassment on public transport; whether it is leering, touching, groping or making people uncomfortable though their words. As of now the only defence women have is to congregate in numbers or use their elbows or handbags as a defence. It’s going to take more than a few ‘stings’ from the police to sort out this problem.
Man arrested for pedophilia
The writer loves traveling, writing, and good food when he is afforded an escape from the rat race. He can be contacted at [email protected]
